A known total of 83 World War One period Pattern 1907 bayonets for the ‘Rifle, Short, Magazine, Lee-Enfield, Mark III’ have pommel markings indicating issue to the Royal Air Force, formed on 1st April 1918. They bear alpha-numeric serial markings best interpreted as stock-taking marks, suggesting a maximum total of 70,000 were allocated for use by that air force. The written sources indicate that from at least 1922 to 1937, bayonets and the rifles to go with them were a regular part of an aircraftman’s equipment. Neither these nor a search of unpublished documents in the National Archives and the British Library provide a possible explanation why these weapons would be issued to the Royal Air Force, suggesting an archaeo-historical approach was more appropriate. This article sets out our results and conclusions on the subject.

已知总共有 83 把第一次世界大战时期的 1907 型刺刀用于“步枪、短枪、弹匣、Lee-Enfield、Mark III”，其刀头标记表明是交付给 1918 年 4 月 1 日成立的皇家空军的。它们带有字母数字最好将序列标记解释为盘点标记，这表明该空军最多分配了 70,000 个标记。书面资料表明，至少从 1922 年到 1937 年，刺刀和与之配套的步枪是飞行员装备的常规组成部分。无论是这些还是对国家档案馆和大英图书馆中未发表的文件的搜索，都无法解释为什么这些武器会发给皇家空军，这表明考古历史方法更合适。本文阐述了我们在该主题上的结果和结论。