William Ewart Fairbairn (1885-1960) was a soldier, police officer, and exponent of hand-to-hand combat methods for the Shanghai police between the World Wars, and allied special forces in World War II.

Biography

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He served with the Royal Marine Light Infantry starting in 1901. After joining the Shanghai Municipal Police (SMP) in 1907, he studied Jujitsu and then Chinese martial arts, developed his own fighting system -- Defendu -- and taught it to members of that police force in order to reduce officer fatalities. He described this system as primarily based on his personal experience, which according to police records included some 600 non-training fights, by his retirement at age 55 from the position of Assistant Commissioner in 1940. Together with Eric A. Sykes he developed innovative pistol shooting techniques for the SMP which were later disseminated through their book Shooting to live with the one hand gun (1942).

He was recruited by the British Secret Service as an Army officer; he trained both UK, U.S. and Canadian Commando and Ranger forces and those who would train them.

He rose to the rank of lieutenant-colonel by the end of World War II, and received the U.S. Legion of Merit at the request of "Wild Bill" Donovan, founder of the U.S. O.S.S.

He is known for designing the Fairbairn-Sykes fighting knife which was used by British Special Forces in World War II, and for his textbook Scientific Self-Defence. The television series Secrets of War suggested him as a possible inspiration for James Bond.

See also

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• Combatives
  • Defendu
• Camp X

External links

• The Source
• Shanghai Municipal Police
• Paladin Press Publisher of many of Fairbairn's books.

1885 births | 1960 deaths | British colonial police officers | British World War II people | Recipients of the Legion of Merit