Survival knife

[3] Custom or semi-custom makers such as Americans Gil Hibben, Jimmy Lile, Bo Randall, and Chris Reeve are often credited with inventing those features.

[6] During WWII, survival knives were issued to aircraft crew, as it was a real possibility that these personnel might be shot down over wilderness or behind enemy lines.

During Vietnam, Randall received feedback from a Combat Surgeon in the US Army's 94th Medical Detachment named Captain George Ingraham.

Ingraham's request was for serrations on the spine to cut through the fuselage of downed aircraft to rescue trapped personnel and a hollow handle to allow storage of survival gear.

[8] Survival knives are designed for work such as setting traps, cutting branches, carving wood, and skinning animals.

On some survival knives, the spine or back of the blade is flat; allowing it to make a good hitting platform when pounding it with a hard stick to aid in splitting wood.

Other models such as Lile's and Parrish's feature a serrated spine or in the case of Rob Simonich's and Strider Knives, a band (strapping) breaker near the tip.

Makers like Lile, Strider, and Parrish often wrap these metal handled knives with cord which can be used in survival situations and in daily use provides a more comfortable and reliable grip.

The serrations seen on Aircrew Survival Egress Knife (ASEK) are intended to allow air crewmen to cut their way free through the relatively thin metal skin of a crashed helicopter or airplane.