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Home / The Source
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The Source
By Peter Robins
You may well have pondered this question a thousand times in
your close quarter combat training - where did this come from? What was the
source? How did it come about?
Of course close combat is as old as man - from the very first we have fought
each other, for food, territory or personal gain - but when did this close
combat become a virtual science? This is we something we can define quite
accurately.
Close quarter combat training reached its zenith in the Second World War -
beginning in 1940 when two remarkable men arrived home to their native England
after long service out in China. One had been a businessman and also a police
special (reserve officer) the other a regular police officer. Both had served in
the Shanghai Municipal Police (SMP) arguably the best trained police force the
world has yet seen.
Who were these men? The former was Eric Anthony Sykes, the latter William Ewart
Fairbairn. Both had been in China for many years and met up in the early 1920's
in Shanghai that infamous city, known as the Paris of the East. Shanghai is
still regarded as having been one of the world's toughest and most dangerous
cities, and in the 20's and 30's so it was. It was a unique place in that it was
a foreign settlement and municipality situated next to the old Chinese city and
self governing. It was home to a thriving and mixed population and also home to
a seething Chinese population. The Settlement had no definite borders and so in
and out flowed all kinds of problems - mostly in the form of trouble makers and
criminals. Chinese gangs abounded and with them came organized crime on a huge
and terrifying scale. To keep law and order in this melting pot was the SMP.
They were a multi national force of Chinese, Japanese, Sikhs and "Foreign"
Officers (mainly British) from all over the world. At its peak the SMP numbered
about 6,000 men.
All officers were armed, with baton and pistol, and were also trained in empty
hand techniques to a high degree of skill and confidence. This covered arrest
and restraint techniques and also self protection, the latter is still being
overlooked or ignored today! The SMP knew that the former was of little value
without the latter being present. The man responsible for developing the force's
skills in defensive skills was W.E. Fairbairn. He had joined the SMP in 1907 and
had risen through the ranks to become by 1935 an Assistant Commissioner. He had
been their Chief Instructor in close combat and firearms training. As well as
this he had devised, trained and led the world's first dedicated Riot Squad
called the Reserve Unit (RU) . As well as covering all riots and street
disturbances the RU also were on call to attend special problems where the local
station could not contain the situation. These would cover such happenings as
kidnap, armed robberies and siege problems. They also acted a special guards to
high risk cargoes, to high risk persons and at courts. In short they were the
forerunners of all of today's SWAT, HRT and ERT teams.
E.A. Sykes had worked on the RU, with Fairbairn, as the officer in charge of a
specialist sniper team. He also had extensive knowledge of unarmed fighting
skills. Fairbairn had in his time in Shanghai devoted much time to training in
these arts from many different sources. It was these skills that he honed to
pass on to his men and to develop his own method of self protection called
Defendu.
Both men retired in 1940 and returned to Britain at war, to find that it was
under dire threat of invasion from Nazi Germany. Hitler had put into motion his
plan called "Operation Sealion" in which he was going to invade from France and
put in place a massive force to occupy and control most of Britain. The threat
was in place directly after the disastrous rout of the Allied forces in Holland,
Belgium and France. This culminated at a place called Dunkirk where by nothing
short of a miracle Britain managed to evacuate about a quarter of a million men.
They returned to our shores leaving behind a massive amount of arms and
ammunition. So it was that that the Nazis were poised to invade a country with
little, save courage and spirit, to defend with. While the army reformed another
miracle was needed. To my mind this came about when Fairbairn and Sykes offered
their unique services to the War Office. They were taken on as Captain
Instructors and sent up to the newly formed Special Training Center (STC) at
Lochailort in Scotland. This was to be the least known but most important battle
school of all. Gathered here were the best instructors that Britain had to
quickly train officers and specialist units to take the fight back to the Nazis.
It had been at last realized that the trench warfare mentality of the First
World War was outdated and useless. What was needed was the mentality of attack
and not defense, as had been the case in the past. To help weld together this
attitude being fostered and taught at the STC, Fairbairn and Sykes were
instrumental in teaching pistol and Tommy gun shooting, Knife and Unarmed Combat
to all who passed through the hallowed gates. A point worth knowing is that
Fairbairn was then 55 years of age, Sykes was 57!
What must be made clear and it is something that is often misunderstood -
Defendu was the system developed for the SMP and other police forces of the
East; it formed the foundation for what they taught during the war, but was not
the same. Defendu was for mainly arrest and restraint and self protection,
albeit under often dangerous circumstances - the system(s) taught during the war
were for killing and maiming in most instances. Therein lies the subtle but
important difference. Many people today mix the two up!
Their unique, simple, direct and devastating techniques were taught to countless
men who took these valuable lessons back to their own units and passed them on.
No one who attended the STC ever forgot these two men and what they gave of them
selves to their classes in the way of skills and perhaps more importantly in
confidence and self esteem. The mindset of Attack or at worst Counter Attack was
emphasized throughout the training time allotted to Fairbairn and Sykes. It was
not wasted. They taught there for two years and it could be said that close
quarter combat training reached its zenith at the STC, even though they went on
to teach at other establishments. Fairbairn left Britain in 1942 and traveled to
Canada and the United States to work with the OSS and other units. Sykes
remained in Britain traveling extensively. They left behind them a great legacy.
It deserves to be carried on to the coming generations of men who will go in
harm's way for the greater good of all.
Fairbairn and Sykes created different cadres of instructors in every school they
went to and so built up a network of exceptionally skilled instructors to
"spread the gospel". At the end of the war these men quietly went back to their
families and loved ones to try to catch up with the missing years in their
personal lives. Years taken away from them by the onslaught of war. It is to
these specially picked men that we also owe a debt of gratitude. We also owe
them a debt of honor in that any teaching or training in the name of Fairbairn
and Sykes should only benefit the "good guys". In their memory I would ask you
to join me in doing that - that debt is just too great to do otherwise.
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