A Roadside Operation
The life of a nine-year old boy was hanging by a thread in June 1990.
Philip Byrne was spending his holidays with an aunt in Dublin, Ireland. While riding his bicycle to a carnival he was hit by a car. He was left lying in the road, badly injured – with internal injuries that could have cost him his life. By extraordinary coincidence a group of surgeons were travelling in the car behind. They operated on the boy on the spot using a Swiss pocket-knife and attached a drainage tube for the blood.
Philip has these doctors and the Victorinox knife to thank for saving his life.
Repairs in Space
In May 1991 the Discovery space shuttle set off on one of its flights into near space. As always, each of the astronauts carried a Victorinox pocket-knife as part of their personal equipment. On this particular mission an expensive experiment would have failed if the little red tool hadn’t got the astronauts out a jam. The remarkable story was even reported in detail in Le Figaro, the world-renowned French newspaper.
During the mission it was discovered that a piece of recording equipment was no longer functioning properly. The task of this piece of equipment was to record data from two telescopes for use in experiments. On the sixth day of the nine-day mission, Ground Control in Houston, Texas worked out a solution to the problem. A new cable connection was required to a sophisticated computer. In order to carefully strip the insulation from the wires, the astronaut used a Victorinox Army Officer’s Knife. The computer was successfully re-connected and the vital data rescue.
Very Standard Knives
As the spokesman for the mission, James Hartsfield, explained, the Victorinox Army Officer’s Knife is standard equipment for all astronauts. “We give each astronaut a Swiss Army Officer’s Knife and they carry it with them on board. It’s been with every mission right from the outset.” The knives made for the astronauts at Victorinox are no different to the standard pocket-knives anyone can buy. In Hartsfield’s words: The knife accomplished its task well.»
Equipment Repaired in the Space Lab
In 1983 the German Ulf Merbold became the first non-American to go into space on a space shuttle. A piece of luck as it turned out for NASA, since Merbold rescued experiments costing countless millions on board the space shuttle with the help of his penknife. He was celebrated as a hero in the German press, as can be seen from the following report in the illustrated «New Review»:
«Let’s not get carried away. However, we are right to be just a little bit proud of our fellow countryman in space. Ulf Merbold, 42, a father of two, performed a small miracle. On the ten day flight on the US Space Shuttle «Columbia» he came to the rescue of a series of important experiments totalling several hundred million marks. All he needed for this was a Swiss knife and natural German thoroughness.
How did Merbold come to be up in space? The physicist from Stuttgart received a free place on the flight as a service in return, so to speak, for the financing by Europe of Space Lab to the tune of 2 billion German marks and for its being constructed in Bremen. Together with a second payload specialist his task was to carry out 72 experiments in the laboratory – at a height of 250 kilometres and a speed of eight kilometres a second.
The Wrong Kind of Wrench
It became evident during the very first days that things in the expensive laboratory need fixing, just like they do in an apartment. Things went wrong. And then came Ulf Merbold’s finest hour. As he started to open his first piece of equipment it became obvious that he had been sent into space armed with the wrong kind of wrench. Merbold solved the problem using his Swiss pocket-knife. Shortly afterwards there was a failure in the reflector furnace, part of an experiment to manufacture alloys of metal in space under weightless conditions at 1600 degrees. Merbold’s knife had a screwdriver to suit the purpose. Finally he used the knife to repair the electrical plug which had been incorrectly connected to the base. The United States, watching every move via satellite TV, was delighted: a genuine handyman in space.
Compliment from the Commander
Even the commander of the Columbia, moon landing veteran John Young, who was initially rather distant, was impressed with his passenger. “That guy over there” he said to the Ground Control Station, “has really been slogging his guts out and he doesn’t even have a good window seat.” Through Merbold (and thanks to Victorinox) Europe had indeed played its part in space travel»
American Admiral’s Life Saved
The Victorinox knife repeatedly turns up in stories about aircraft. In one case, following a tragic crash, it enabled a passenger to free himself from the burning wreckage. On another occasion the little red knife saved an American admiral’s life by being used to repair an oxygen mask. Without this he would have crashed into the Atlantic. Reports on these events were received at Ibach.
Seat Belts Cut Through
The following happened to Helmut Knosp from Freiburg in Breisgau, Germany::
«On 31 March I crashed into the French Voges on a flight from Reims, France to Freiburg in a four-seater sporting aircraft. My three companions were killed on the spot. I escaped with a few broken bones in my arms and legs and other minor injuries. My life was saved thanks to a Swiss Army Officer’s pocket-knife made by your company. With the help of the knife I was able to free myself from the crumpled, burning machine by cutting through the seat belt and then cutting my way through the plastic trim and forcing my way out of the window. Since then I have named the knife, my constant companion for many years, ’my lifesaver’ because without it I would no longer be alive.»
Oxygen Mask Repaired
The Army Officer’s Knife from Victorinox also saved the life of an American admiral, on this occasion over the Atlantic. The high-ranking officer wrote to Ibach saying:
«I have carried my Victorinox friend with me since I started flying 23 years ago. One dark night, in 1988, halfway across the Atlantic I needed it to repair the broken oxygen mask. If I hadn’t had the knife with me I would have been left with no choice but to fly much lower to enable me to breathe. However, this would have meant that the fuel would then not have been sufficient to reach the airport on the Azores (because of increased air resistance). I could have remained at high altitude, but this would have been very dangerous as I could have passed out through lack of oxygen. Neither alternative was a tenable option. Thanks to your super knife I was able to complete my flight safely and as planned.»
In 1966 a female American customer sent a Victorinox knife to Ibach for repair and wrote:
«Our son bought this knife eight years ago in Switzerland. He was ten years old and it was his first trip to Europe. He had earned the money for it himself and the knife was all that he wanted to bring home from Europe. The following summer he took it on a camping trip to a site on the Canadian border where he lost it. He was obviously very upset by this. The next summer he returned to the camp and found the knife purely by accident when diving in quite deep water. He could hardly believe it because it was still in the same condition as it had been when he lost it the year before. So you can understand why we would very much like to have it repaired.»
Cockpit Window Repaired
The second story involves a knife which travelled thousands of kilometres on journeys all round the world and continued to give good service.
«Although it has taken me a long time to get round to sending this letter, I would like to thank you for repairing my knife. It was returned in 1975 in almost the same condition as when I purchased it in 1959», writes Milton B. Mann in his letter to the world-famous company in Ibach.
«This is tremendous service and I cannot tell you how pleased I am with it. This knife represents a unique piece of my life history. It has accompanied me on numerous journeys through 71 countries, has travelled millions of kilometres with me and has been used for almost every task you could possibly imagine. Recently for example, during a refresher test I had to pass as a pilot, the examiner pointed out to me that one of the screws on the cockpit window was loose and he couldn’t close it. The wind was blowing into the cockpit. I told him that there was a screwdriver on my pocket-knife. But he replied that he needed a Philips screwdriver, a special tool for this kind of screw. The examiner was amazed when I showed him my pocket-knife which also had this particular kind of screwdriver attachment and the problem was solved.»
Balloonist Reaches World Record Height
Many stories involving the Victorinox pocket-knife are connected with travel and transport, be it by hot air balloon or mountain bike. Here we recount the two events which would have turned out very differently, or failed outright, if it had not been for the knife.
An article appeared in the famous London newspaper The Times on 7 June 1988 about a new world height record for hot-air balloon flights. However, Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones made the first round-the-world flight by hot-air balloon in March 1999. They carried with them an Officer’s Knife and the Swiss Tool from Victorinox. the attempt very nearly failed and only got off the ground thanks to a Swiss Army Officer’s Knife, which the pilot of the balloon used to cut the ropes to two sacks of sand, allowing the journey skywards to begin. The following report was sent via the official channel of the Swiss Embassy in London to Victorinox AG in Ibach: «Lindstrand (the pilot) was born in Sweden but lives in Great Britain. Last year, together with the entrepreneur Richard Branson, he was one of the first pilots to cross the Atlantic in a balloon. Yesterday he succeeded in breaking the world height record following just a couple of false starts. In addition, because of high winds Lindstrand had to wait for more than a week to get a good start window.
Two Forgotten Sacks
Yesterday morning however, at 5.42 a.m., he set off 27 miles north of Laredo in a pressurised aluminium capsule. Weather conditions were ideal: blue sky with a light wind. The trickiest moment was at the start: due to an oversight, Lindstrand had failed to release two 100-pound sacks of sand. He had to climb down from his capsule and cut them off using a Swiss Army Officer’s Knife.
The balloon, carrying the two adventurers, then flew up to the new world record height of 11 miles (17.7 kilometres). The Victorinox pocket knife thus played an important part in the attainment of a world record for flying and physical endurance.
The Himalayas – Pocket Knives to the Top of the World
The Swiss knife has been taken on expeditions to the highest mountains in the world. It has been taken up the 8848-metre Mount Everest and up Anapurna in Central Asia. In 1970 Englishman Chris Bonington led the Anapurna South expedition. This mountain is the smallest of the 14 peaks over eight thousand metres high and, like Everest, lies in the Himalayas on the border between Nepal and Tibet. Following the successful expedition, Bonington sent a letter of thanks to the Elsener knife factory for its assistance, recounting the following story::
«Your support enabled us to climb the highest and steepest mountain face in the Himalayas. It was the most difficult mountain expedition in which I have ever participated. The extremely difficult conditions tested both climbers and equipment to the full. During the expedition the Swiss pocket-knives showed themselves to be excellent servants. They proved highly versatile, for example for cutting finger and toe nails high up the mountain, or filing down a spanner to the precise width required for repairing the seal on a leaking oxygen tank.
Withstood Hammer Blows
During our adventure I think we used every single blade on the knife except for the fish-scaling knife, there being a distinct shortage of freshwater fish halfway up the south face of Anapurna. The knives even stood up to blows from a hammer; despite this treatment the blades remained sharp. The kitchen and butcher’s knives were used extensively at our base camp. Finally, they had to deal with whole necks of mutton and I can assure you that Nepalese goats and oxen are amongst the toughest in the world.
At the end of our expedition the kitchen knives were a much sought after prize amongst our Sherpas and I think that the knives were just as sharp as they had been at the beginning of the adventure. Without your generosity, and that of other companies, we would not have succeeded in mounting this Anapurna South expedition. Once again, many thanks for your help.»
In another letter, Bonington thanked the company for its support of the British Everest expedition up the south-west face in 1975: «I would like to personally thank you once again for all the help you have given me over the years. As always, the Swiss knives proved their worth superbly. In fact, Doug Scott and Dougal Haston reached the top thanks to one of your knives. Doug used it to free Dougal’s oxygen system which had become blocked with ice. The only thing I regret is that I lost my own multi-purpose knife when I left the camp for one hour. I assume that one of the Sherpas swapped it for a more basic model?»
Jean Troillet from western Switzerland on Nanga Parbat in the Himalayas, 2002. He has also relied for many years on his faithful companions from Victorinox.
