Eric A. Sykes
Encyclopedia
Eric Anthony Sykes born Eric Anthony Schwabe in Barton on Irwell
Barton-upon-Irwell
Barton-upon-Irwell is a suburban area of Eccles, Greater Manchester, England.-History:...

, Manchester, England. He is most famous for his work with William E. Fairbairn
William E. Fairbairn
William Ewart Fairbairn was a British soldier, police officer and exponent of hand-to-hand combat method, the close combat, for the Shanghai Police between the world wars, and allied special forces in World War II. He developed his own fighting system known as Defendu, as well as other weapons...

 in the development of the eponymous Fairbairn-Sykes Fighting Knife
Fairbairn-Sykes fighting knife
The Fairbairn-Sykes Fighting Knife is a double-edged fighting knife resembling a dagger or poignard with a foil grip developed by William Ewart Fairbairn and Eric Anthony Sykes in Shanghai based on concepts which the two men initiated before World War II while serving on the Shanghai Municipal...

 and modern British Close Quarters Battle
Close quarters battle
Close quarters combat or close quarters battle is a type of fighting in which small units engage the enemy with personal weapons at very short range, potentially to the point of hand-to-hand combat or fighting with hand weapons such as swords or knives...

 (CQB) martial arts during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. Originally working for an import/export company selling weapons in East Asia, he claimed he volunteered for, and served in, the British Army as a sharpshooter on the Western Front during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. Returning to China in 1917, he joined the volunteer branch of the Shanghai Municipal Police
Shanghai Municipal Police
The Shanghai Municipal Police was the police force of the Shanghai Municipal Council which governed the Shanghai International Settlement between 1854 and 1943, when the settlement was retroceded to Chinese control....

 (SMP) Specials with the rank of Inspector in 1926.

Background

Reputedly, he was born in Barton on Irwell
Barton-upon-Irwell
Barton-upon-Irwell is a suburban area of Eccles, Greater Manchester, England.-History:...

. The reasons for his name change in 1917 were said to be because he found it "too Germanic". A shikari hunter, he was an avid rifleman and an expert with the pistol. He first arrived in Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...

 in 1907 while working for Reiss & Co. He met Fairbairn in 1919, then with the Shanghai Municipal Police, beginning their famous professional association. In 1923 Sykes was working for the China & Japan Trading Co, China representative for Remington
Remington Arms
Remington Arms Company, Inc. was founded in 1816 by Eliphalet Remington in Ilion, New York, as E. Remington and Sons. It is the oldest company in the United States which still makes its original product, and is the oldest continuously operating manufacturer in North America. It is the only U.S....

 and Colt
Colt's Manufacturing Company
Colt's Manufacturing Company is a United States firearms manufacturer, whose first predecessor corporation was founded in 1836 by Sam Colt. Colt is best known for the engineering, production, and marketing of firearms over the later half of the 19th and the 20th century...

. It was not until 1926 that Sykes officially joined the SMP as an unpaid, part-time volunteer officer in the reserve, and in 1929 he joined S.J. David & Co., where he worked until his departure from China in 1940.

While working for S.J. David & Co., his experience in sharpshooting and his personal friendship with Fairbairn led him to form and oversee a team of civilian and police snipers for the SMP. He became the head of this unit in 1937, working part-time in this capacity until he resigned this position in 1939. Also in 1939 he joined the British Secret Intelligence Service
Secret Intelligence Service
The Secret Intelligence Service is responsible for supplying the British Government with foreign intelligence. Alongside the internal Security Service , the Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence Intelligence , it operates under the formal direction of the Joint Intelligence...

 (SIS - MI6), where he worked with SIS at the Special Training Centre in Lochailort
Lochailort
Lochailort is a hamlet in Scotland that lies at the head of Loch Ailort, a sea loch, on the junction of the Road to the Isles between Fort William and Mallaig with the A861 loop towards Salen and Strontian. It is served by Lochailort railway station on the West Highland Line...

, Scotland. In 1940, Fairbairn resigned from the Shanghai Municipal Police and returned to Britain, with Sykes following. The pair had apparently planned this, since they shipped crates full of illegal weapons from lax Shanghai into Britain on their boat.

After training special forces units throughout 1940, the two were finally commissioned into the British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...

 on the General List of 1941. Their 1942 book Shooting to Live, published in 1942, is considered by many to be the classic text of pistol combat
Combat pistol shooting
Combat pistol shooting is a modern martial art that focuses on the use of the handgun as a defensive weapon for self defense, or for military and police use...

, and one of the best codifications of the high-stress point shooting
Point shooting
Point shooting, also called threat focused shooting, is a method of shooting a firearm that relies on a shooter's instinctive reactions, kinematics, and the use of biomechanics that can be employed effectively in life-threatening emergencies to quickly engage close targets.This method of shooting...

 method. Nevertheless, this was the last time the pair worked together in any capacity; by mid-1942 the pair's friendship had split, with Sykes claiming that Fairbairn treated him as an inferior. Soon thereafter, Fairbairn travelled to Canada to teach armed and unarmed combat to commandos and covert agents of the Americas. Sykes stayed in Great Britain, training Special Operations Executive (SOE)
Special Operations Executive
The Special Operations Executive was a World War II organisation of the United Kingdom. It was officially formed by Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Minister of Economic Warfare Hugh Dalton on 22 July 1940, to conduct guerrilla warfare against the Axis powers and to instruct and aid local...

 agents at the various Special Training Centres before being assigned to train the joint UK/US Jedburgh teams
Operation Jedburgh
Operation Jedburgh was a clandestine operation during World War II, in which personnel of the British Special Operations Executive, the U.S...

 at Milton Hall
Milton Hall
Milton Hall is the largest private house in Cambridgeshire, England, and formerly a part of Northamptonshire. It dates from 1594, being the historical home of the Fitzwilliam family, and is situated in an extensive park in which some original oak trees from an earlier Tudor Deer Park...

.

He attained the rank of Major. He died at Bexhill-on-Sea
Bexhill-on-Sea
Bexhill-on-Sea is a town and seaside resort in the county of East Sussex, in the south of England, within the District of Rother. It has a population of approximately 40,000...

, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

.

Books

  • Shooting to Live with the One-Hand Gun, co-authored with William Ewart Fairbairn. First published in 1942 by Oliver And Boyd London England. Size 4 ¾” X 7" in hardcover with 96 pages. Modern re-printing by Paladin Press ISBN 0-87364-027-6
  • W E Fairbairn Gentleman & Warrior The Shanghai Years(2005) First biography on Fairbairn. By Peter Robins

See also

  • Combatives
    Combatives
    Combatives is a United States Army term for hand-to-hand combat training and techniques.-History:Militaries have long taught unarmed combat, both as physical conditioning and as a supplement to armed combat. Among the samurai of Japan, such combatives were known as Bujutsu...

  • William E. Fairbairn
    William E. Fairbairn
    William Ewart Fairbairn was a British soldier, police officer and exponent of hand-to-hand combat method, the close combat, for the Shanghai Police between the world wars, and allied special forces in World War II. He developed his own fighting system known as Defendu, as well as other weapons...

  • Fairbairn-Sykes fighting knife
    Fairbairn-Sykes fighting knife
    The Fairbairn-Sykes Fighting Knife is a double-edged fighting knife resembling a dagger or poignard with a foil grip developed by William Ewart Fairbairn and Eric Anthony Sykes in Shanghai based on concepts which the two men initiated before World War II while serving on the Shanghai Municipal...

  • Point shooting
    Point shooting
    Point shooting, also called threat focused shooting, is a method of shooting a firearm that relies on a shooter's instinctive reactions, kinematics, and the use of biomechanics that can be employed effectively in life-threatening emergencies to quickly engage close targets.This method of shooting...


External links

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