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Deadly Little Dagger: America’s Most Dangerous Knife

H. Clay Aalders
Francis Gary Powers
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Deadly Little Dagger: America’s Most Dangerous Knife
by Jim Phillips

Governments and their agents have long puzzled over just what to do in the event of being captured by the enemy. Was there a suitable method for an agent to quickly end any chance of being tortured?
British agents during WWII were issued capsules that unfortunately did not contain enough poison to end their days. Upon taking the pill these agents found, to their dismay, that it only made them very sick and did not end their torture at the hands of their Gestapo captors.
The American Office of Strategic Services (OSS), forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), did have available cyanide capsules. At the end of WWII, when German General Hermann Goering was under arrest pending his trial, it was decided to allow him to make a self-inflicted exit via poison supplied by the OSS to his prison cell.

The above article appears in our August 2020 issue of Knife Magazine. Click the blue box below to read the whole thing.

Deadly Dagger

Here is the YouTube Video Jim references in print:

 

 

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H. Clay Aalders

H. Clay Aalders is a lifelong edged tool user. He spent the past 20 years as a woodworker and fishing guide in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Idaho, and Tennessee. While guiding in Idaho, Clay worked part-time writing for a local newspaper, and upon moving to Tennessee began writing for the blog The Truth About Knives - spending his last 5 years there as Managing Editor. His background is in fixed-blade hunting and bushcraft knives, but has jumped into the world of vintage slipjoint collecting with both feet since coming to work at Knife Magazine. Clay’s primary role is as Digital Editor, curating and creating new content for our website and blog, as well as maintaining the Knife Magazine social media accounts (FB/IG: @theknifemag, Twitter: @knifemagazine). He is also a contributor and Associate Editor of the print magazine.

2 Responses

  1. Here is our response:

    H. Clay Aalders
    knifemagazine.com
    clay@knifemagazine.com
    In reply to Philip McEvoy.

    The claim about Goering raised an eyebrow here in the office as well.
    Jim is _incredibly_ well connected, and stands by the assertion. But we recognize that this is is a controversial, and not universally accepted position.

    Reply

  2. This was left on a different thread, but belongs here:

    Philip McEvoy

    August 2020, Knife Magazine, ‘A Deadly Little Dagger’ Correction.

    Himmler took poison, presumably his own, shortly after being captured by British troops,

    Goering was captured, tried and convicted of committing War Crimes. He was sentenced to die by hanging. The night before his execution was to be carried out he also took poison, source unknown. I have never read that any historian claims the OSS supplied either Nazi with their fatal poison.

    Reply

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