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Rex Applegate – Born
April 21, 2021
Rex Applegate
June 21, 1914 – July 14, 1998
- American military officer
- worked for the Office of Strategic Services during World War II
- 1941 – developing armed and unarmed close quarter combat courses for the US Army
- served as the personal bodyguard to President Franklin D Roosevelt
- advisor to the government of Mexico “Honorary General”
- Tought John Wayne how to shoot
- technical advisor on the set of The Alamo
- Applegate was said to be the source and inspiration for several of Ian Fleming’s characters in the James Bond novels
- 1943 he wrote Kill or Get Killed
a classic manual of Western-style hand-to-hand combat. - 1976 Kill or Get Killed was published by the US Marine Corps as Fleet Marine Force Reference Publication 12-80
- 1941 Applegate-Fairbairn fighting knife
- 1993 – Combat Use of the Double-Edged Fighting Knife