Bushcraft: starring Richard Graves

Amazon sells Richard Graves original 1944 work Bushcraft: How to Live in the Jungle & Bush (c) 1944. The dust jacket states that this book was taken directly from his class training notes while in the U.S. Army Air Crew, Jungle Survival & Rescue Detachment. He also instructed while operating out of Hollandia, Dutch New Guinea.

Here is the introduction to the revised and updated ~ Australian Bushcraft (c) 1984.

Richard Graves, who died in 1971, first published The 10 Bushcraft Books in 1950. A cousin of poet and author Robert Graves, he was an enthusiastic bushwalker, skier and a pioneer of white-water canoeing. During the Second World War he realised that knowing the bush helped to save lives, particularly those of men stranded behind enemy lines in the island jungles of the Pacific zone. He founded and led the Australian Jungle Rescue Detachment, assigned to the Far East United States Air Force. This detachment of 60 specially selected A.I.F. soldiers successfully carried out more than 300 rescue missions during the period of the war. Most of these missions were in enemy-held territory. All were successful, and no lives were lost.

The key to the success of these rescue missions in wild and inhospitable country was survival. It was then, during the jungle training school period, that he started to compile the notes for the original 10 bushcraft volumes.

Graves later revised the notes and after the war conducted a school in bushcraft for almost twenty years.

In his introduction to the collection of these books Graves stated:

“The practice of bushcraft shows many unexpected results. The five senses are sharpened and consequently the joy of being alive is greater. The individual’s ability to adapt and improvise is developed to a remarkable degree. This in turn leads to increased self-confidence.”

“Self-confidence and the ability to adapt to a changing environment and to overcome the difficulties is followed by a rapid improvement in the individual’s daily work. This in turn leads to advancement and promotion. Bushcraft, by developing adaptability, provides a broadening influence, a necessary counter to offset the narrowing influence of modern specialisation.”

“For this work of bushcraft, all that is needed is a sharp cutting instrument: knife axe or machete. The last is the most useful. For the work, dead materials are most suitable. The practice of bushcraft conserves and does not destroy wildlife.”