Colonel Rex Applegate

On 14 July 1998 America lost one of its greatest warriors and finest gentlemen. On that day in San Diego, California, Col. Rex Applegate died from the effects of a stroke complicated by pneumonia. He was 84.

Col. Rex Applegate was born on 21 June 1914 in the small town of Yoncolla, Oregon. Applegate entered active duty in 1939 and was assigned to the Military Police Corps. In March 1942, following a promotion to First Lieutenant and the receipt of a regular army commission, he was summoned to Washington, D.C., for a personal interview with then Colonel "Wild Bill" Donovan. As the director of the Office of the Coordinator of Information (COI), Donovan had been tasked with establishing a new organization to train and deploy intelligence operatives, saboteurs, and assassins in support of the Allied war effort. He was impressed with Applegate and immediately selected him as the primary trainer for his new unit. With that assignment came the order to "learn everything there is to know in the world about close combat with and without weapons," a task that ultimately become the young lieutenant's life's work.

By mid-1942, the COI was renamed the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), and Applegate was organizing a top-secret training camp in the Maryland countryside. The camp, known simply as "Area B," was adjacent to President Roosevelt's "Shangri-La," which later became Camp David. Because of this proximity and the constant presence of heavily armed personnel in Area B, Applegate was also made part of the presidential camp bodyguard for FDR.

While assigned to Area B, Applegate became an expert in all facets of close combat, including hand-to-hand fighting, knife fighting, weapon disarming, and combat shooting with handguns and shoulder weapons. He worked closely with W.E. Fairbairn and E.A. Sykes, veterans of the Shanghai Municipal Police and trainers of the British commandos, and developed advanced training facilities and teaching methods that rivaled today's state of the art. He and the other members of his staff also frequently participated in actual combat operations to ensure that the methods they taught would work on the battlefield.

During his tour of duty at Area B and a later assignment at the Military Intelligence Training Center at Camp Ritchie, Maryland, Applegate taught literally thousands of U.S. and Allied operatives the skills necessary to survive and kill on the battle field. He also compiled these lessons in the form of his landmark book Kill or Get Killed, the classic text on close-combat that is now in its 28th printing.

At the end of World War II, Colonel Applegate retired from the military and moved to Mexico City, where he served as president of an arms importing company. At the request of the Mexican government, he also applied his considerable talents toward the field of riot control and soon became the world's foremost authority on this specialty.

The Colonel remained in Mexico until the early 1960s, when he was asked to return to the United States to help quell our own civil disturbances. He advised many state and federal agencies on the tactics of riot control and also authored a definitive text on this subject.

As a devoted student of close-combat tactics, Colonel Applegate realized that the real-world lessons he had learned during World War II were still relevant in the latter half of this century. He therefore began efforts to share this knowledge and adapt it to the needs of various military and police agencies. The Colonel wrote numerous articles for law enforcement publications and authored several more books. He became involved in the design of edged weapons, taking steps to produce the Applegate-Fairbairn Fighting Knife he and Fairbairn had conceived near the end of the war, as well as several other outstanding designs. A staunch supporter of the Second Amendment, Colonel Applegate also served on the NRA Board of Directors and was a recipient of the coveted Outstanding American Handgunner Award.