Editing Rex Applegate

{{Short description|American combat expert (1914–1998)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=November 2013}}
{{Infobox writer
| name             = Rex Applegate
| image            = Rex Applegate.jpg
| imagesize        = 
| alt              = Black and white image of Rex Applegate in military uniform. He is facing the camera, slightly crouched, fighting knife in right hand and with left hand in a ready position about mid-chest high.
| birth_name       = Rex Applegate
| birth_date       = {{Birth date|1914|6|21}}
| birth_place      = [[Yoncalla, Oregon]], U.S.
| death_date       = {{Death date and age|1998|7|14|1914|6|21 }}
| death_place      = [[San Diego]], California, U.S.
| occupation       = Author and journalist
| nationality      = American
| period           = 1943–1998
| genre            = [[World War II combatives|Combatives]]
| spouse           = Edith, Carole
| children         = [[Shannon Applegate]] (daughter), Rex Applegate (son), Lisha Allen (daughter)
| caption          = Lt. Col. Rex Applegate demonstrating his knife fighting technique.
}}
'''Rex Applegate''' (June 21, 1914 – July 14, 1998) was an American military officer who worked for the [[Office of Strategic Services]], where he trained Allied [[special forces]] personnel in close-quarters combat during [[World War II]]. He held the rank of [[Colonel (United States)|colonel]].

==Early life==
Applegate was born on June 21, 1914, in [[Oregon]].  He was a descendant of [[Charles Applegate]], who blazed the [[Oregon Trail]] in 1843 with his brothers [[Jesse Applegate|Jesse]] and [[Lindsay Applegate|Lindsay]] and established the [[Applegate Trail]]. Applegate began hunting and shooting at a young age and learned marksmanship from his uncle [[Gus Peret]] who was a famed exhibition shooter and [[professional hunter]] at the time.  Applegate graduated from the [[University of Oregon]] with a Business Degree in 1940 and went on to take a commission in the [[US Army]] as a [[second lieutenant]].  His first billet was with the 209th Military Police Company as a lung ailment kept him from holding a combat position.<ref name=Ron>{{cite book|last=Shillingford |first=Ron|title=The Elite Forces Handbook of Unarmed Combat |author-link= Ron Shillingford |page=11|publisher= Macmillan|year= 2001 |isbn= 978-0-312-26436-9 }}</ref><ref name=Goldstein/>

==World War II==
In 1941, Applegate was developing armed and unarmed close quarter combat courses for the US Army at [[Camp Ritchie]] when he was recruited by [[William J. Donovan|Wild Bill Donovan]] for the OSS, specifically to build and run what was called "The School for Spies and Assassins", the location of which is now [[Camp David]].<ref name=Goldstein/>  Donovan had Applegate learn all that he could about armed and unarmed fighting from [[William E. Fairbairn]] to form a brutal and effective system.  He was the close-combat coordinator for all clandestine missions and this role brought him into contact with other fighters and martial artists of the time period such as a Finnish soldier who killed 21 Russians with a knife, and the founder of the [[United Kingdom|British]] [[Special Air Service|SAS]]: [[David Stirling]].<ref name=Todd>{{cite book|title=Military Combative Masters of the 20th Century |first=Tank |last=Todd| publisher =[[Lulu.com|Lulu Press]]|year=2006 |pages=52–57|isbn= 978-1-4116-6196-7}}</ref>

At one point during the war, he served as the personal bodyguard to President [[Franklin D Roosevelt]].<ref name=Ron/><ref name=Goldstein>{{cite news|title=Rex Applegate, 84, Instructor of Deadly Skills|first=Richard|last=Goldstein|date=July 27, 1998|work=New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1998/07/27/us/rex-applegate-84-instructor-of-deadly-skills.html|access-date=September 29, 2011}}</ref>

==Postwar life==
After the close of World War II, Applegate spent the next 15 years as an advisor to the government of [[Mexico]] who made him an "Honorary General".<ref name=Todd/>

Applegate was friends with actor [[John Wayne]] and in addition to teaching Wayne how to shoot, Applegate served as a technical advisor on the set of ''[[The Alamo (1960 film)|The Alamo]]''.  Applegate was said to be the source and  inspiration for several of [[Ian Fleming]]'s characters in the [[James Bond]] novels.<ref name=Todd/><ref>{{cite book|title=Life of Ian Fleming|first=John |last=Pearson|page=118|publisher= Aurum Press Ltd|year=2003|isbn=978-1-85410-898-2 }}</ref>

When not traveling to promote his pistol-shooting methods, Applegate spent his last years at the [[Applegatehouse.com|Applegate House]] in [[Yoncalla, Oregon]] and at his home in Scottsburg, Oregon.  Rex Applegate's daughter, historian [[Shannon Applegate]], who writes and lectures on Oregon and the Applegate family history, lives in the adjacent homestead.  Granddaughter, Jessica Applegate Brown, owns and manages [[Applegate House]] Vineyards, an organic vineyard on the historic [[Applegate House]] property.

==Battle methods==

===Unarmed combat===
In 1943 he wrote ''Kill or Get Killed'', which is still considered a classic manual of [[Western martial arts|Western-style hand-to-hand combat]].  The updated 1976 edition of ''Kill or Get Killed'' was published by the [[United States Marine Corps|US Marine Corps]] as Fleet Marine Force Reference Publication 12-80.  From the foreword:

<blockquote>Fleet Marine Force Reference Publication (FMFRP) 12-80, ''Kill or Get Killed'', is published to ensure the retention and dissemination of useful information which is not intended to become doctrine or to be published in Fleet Marine Force manuals.</blockquote>

and

<blockquote>This reference publication was written in 1976 by Lieutenant Colonel Rex Applegate, USA (Ret), with the help of the Combat Section, Military Intelligence Training Center, Camp Ritchie, Maryland.  At last there is one volume which speaks to the subjects of unarmed combat (offensive and defensive), combat use of weapons, disarming the enemy, handling of prisoners, the handle of mob/crowd disobedience, the use of chemicals in such situations, and how to establish a professional riot control unit.</blockquote>

Applegate developed the techniques outlined in the book during his work with [[William E. Fairbairn]], who had previously developed his own techniques while working for the Shanghai Municipal Police from 1907 to 1940.  Fairbairn drew heavily on [[Chinese martial arts]], which he simplified and tailored to the needs of police training in one of the world's most crime-ridden cities, due to its history of crime related to the [[opium]] trade, the [[Taiping Rebellion|rebellion]], and the activities of [[Triad (organized crime)|Triad]] gangsters. His result was the development of [[Defendu]], widely considered the first of what became known as modern [[combatives]].<ref name="BB">{{cite journal|last=Angeles|first=Lito|year=2001|title=Battle School|journal=[[Black Belt Magazine]]|publisher=[[Active Interest Media]]|volume=39|issue=47|pages=74–77}}</ref> Applegate's techniques are heavily based on Fairbairn's Defendu, enhanced with feedback from the OSS operatives who put his techniques into action during World War II.

===Combat handgun techniques===
Applegate was a proponent of the [[combat pistol shooting]] system outlined in ''Kill or Get Killed'', which is based on [[point shooting]] with a strong emphasis on training for close-range, fast-response shooting. This system is somewhat at odds with another prominent system (developed and promoted by [[Jeff Cooper (colonel)|Jeff Cooper]]) called the [[Modern technique (shooting)|modern technique]]. Both systems have many supporters, with variants of Cooper's system being more commonly used.  Supporters of Cooper's methods point to the near-universal use of his system in the [[International Practical Shooting Confederation]] and other forms of [[action shooting]], while Applegate's supporters point to police incidents where officers trained in Cooper's methods discharge many rounds at close range (most measured in tens of feet (3 m) or less) with few (if any) disabling hits.  The last years of Applegate's life were spent promoting his combat-pistol-shooting methods to police agencies. Applegate co-wrote ''The Close-Combat Files of Colonel Rex Applegate''<ref>{{cite web|title=CLOSE-COMBAT FILES OF COLONEL REX APPLEGATE|url=http://www.paladin-press.com/detail.aspx?ID=155|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060312124354/http://www.paladin-press.com/detail.aspx?ID=155|archive-date=March 12, 2006|access-date=2006-05-11|df=mdy-all}}</ref> (with Chuck Melson), and was a founding member of the International Close Combat Instructors Association.

===Combat knife innovations===
[[File:Applegate-Fairbairn Combat II Knife.jpg|thumb|Applegate–Fairbairn fighting knife]]
In the early 1980s, Applegate released a design called the [[Applegate-Fairbairn fighting knife]] (a modified version of the World War II [[Fairbairn-Sykes]] knife). The new knife's design was a collaborative effort by Applegate and Fairbairn during World War II, eliminating the major weaknesses of the F-S knife (among them a weak blade point and the impossibility of determining the blade's orientation by grip alone). Boker Knives offers several versions of the A-F knife. [[Gerber Legendary Blades]] produced a line of folding knives by Applegate and [[Bill Harsey, Jr.]] based on the Applegate-Fairbairn fighting knife.

In the late 1980s Applegate released a modified version of Fairbairn's [[Smatchet]], which had been used by the SAS and OSS during World War II. The development of this weapon began as a collaborative effort between Applegate and Fairbairn during the war. Applegate named his {{convert|10|in|cm|adj=on}} double-edged knife the "Applegate-Fairbairn Combat Smatchet"; it was initially offered as a handmade knife by Bill Harsey, Jr., and later by Wells Creek Gun and Knife Works, and after that by [[Al Mar Knives]]. Following Mar's death, [[Böker]] Knives was licensed to produce it. Applegate later had Harsey design a "Mini-Smatchet" (with a {{convert|4.75|in|cm|adj=on}} blade) which was produced by Boker.

Applegate was inducted into the [[Blade (magazine)|Blade Magazine]] Cutlery Hall of Fame at the 1994 Blade Show in [[Atlanta, Georgia]] in recognition of the impact his designs have made upon the cutlery industry and for his writings on knife fighting.<ref name="HOF">{{cite news |title = Colonel Applegate Inducted into the Hall of Fame| work = Blade Magazine| date = July 31, 1994 }}</ref>

==Books by Applegate==
*''Kill or Get Killed: A Manual of Hand-to-Hand Fighting'' (Military Service Publishing Co., 1943)
*''Riot Control: Materiel and Techniques'' ([[Stackpole Books|Stackpole Company]], 1969)
*''Kill or Get killed: Riot Control Techniques, Manhandling, and Close Combat'' ([[Paladin Press]], 1976) {{ISBN| 9780873640848}}
*''Scouting and Patrolling: Ground Reconnaissance Principles and Training'' (Paladin Press, 1980)
*''Combat Use of the Double-Edged Fighting Knife'' (Paladin Press, 1993)
*''The Close-Combat Files of Col. Rex Applegate'' (Paladin Press,  1998)<ref name="Applegate">{{cite book |title=The Close-Combat Files |first1=Rex, Colonel  |last1=Applegate |author-link1=Rex Applegate |first2=Chuck |last2=Melson |date=September 1, 1998 |isbn=0873649982 |location=Boulder, Colorado |type=Print |publisher=Paladin Press}} {{ISBN|978-0873649988}}</ref>
*  (with Michael Janich) ''Bullseyes Don't Shoot Back: the Complete Textbook of Point Shooting'' (Paladin Press, 1998) {{ISBN|978-0873649575}}

==See also==
*[[Combat knife]]
*[["Yank" Levy]]

==Notes==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20110820094517/http://www.gutterfighting.org/smatchet.html "The Smatchet" from William E. Fairbairn's ''Get Tough!'']
*[https://www.doctrine.usmc.mil/aspweb/historical.asp USMC source for doctrinal materials]{{dead link|date=April 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}, including FMFRP 12-80
*[http://www.fighttimes.com/magazine/magazine.asp?issue=3&article=90 The Applegate-Todd Connection]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20060425212331/http://www.paladin-press.com/ Paladin Press] Publisher of Colonel Applegate's books and videos.

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Applegate, Rex}}
[[Category:1914 births]]
[[Category:1998 deaths]]
[[Category:United States Army colonels]]
[[Category:American martial artists]]
[[Category:People of the Office of Strategic Services]]
[[Category:People from Yoncalla, Oregon]]
[[Category:United States Army personnel of World War II]]
[[Category:Military personnel from Oregon]]
[[Category:Ritchie Boys]]