Rex Applegate
American colonel and close-combat instructor, close-combat coordinator for covert OSS missions and author of the 1943 manual Kill or Get Killed.
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United StatesBiography
Rex Applegate was born on June 21, 1914 in Yoncalla, Oregon, and died on July 14, 1998, at the age of 84, in San Diego, California. He is known as a close-combat instructor with the OSS intelligence service and the author of the book Kill or Get Killed.
In 1940 he graduated in business from the University of Oregon and was commissioned as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army. He initially served with the 209th Military Police Company because a lung condition kept him from combat duty. In 1941 Wild Bill Donovan recruited him into the OSS. He developed his close-combat techniques under the guidance of William E. Fairbairn.
At the OSS he developed training courses at Camp Ritchie and led a "School for Spies and Assassins" at the site of today's Camp David. He was the close-combat coordinator for all covert OSS missions and briefly served as a personal bodyguard to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1943 he published the book Kill or Get Killed, whose revised edition appeared in 1976. He reached the rank of colonel.
Fifteen years after the Second World War he advised the Mexican government, which made him an honorary general. He served as a technical advisor on John Wayne's film The Alamo. He designed the Applegate-Fairbairn combat knife (early eighties) and the Applegate-Fairbairn Combat Smatchet machete (late eighties). In 1994 he was inducted into Blade magazine's Cutlery Hall of Fame.