Benjamin Hubert Mängels December 14, 1936 – November 21, 2014.
Ben passed away at Elbert Colorado aged 78 years. He is survived by one son, and four daughters.
- Malcolm Mängels
- Dolly Foley
- Rhoda Baily
- Caren Mängels
- Marlene Parks
Ben’s son, Malcolm brought to my attention how his father with all his toughness and combative capabilities also had a softer and very caring side to him.
He told me of when his dad and mum moved to Leavenworth, Washington of how Ben established a school instructing self-defence at the community centre with all the revenue going to the community centre. He also provided training in self-defence for troubled youth to make them more responsible, keep them safe, give them confidence and assist them with overcoming issues from their past.
Ben could not make it to our association gatherings over years gone by and confided in me it was because his late wife Elizabeth had health issues and he wanted to be there to look after her. Ben told me he did not like anyone outside family to know of Mrs Mängels’ health issues or their personal business but told me “you are a good friend and I want you to know why I can’t be active in association business that requires traveling.”
Ben retired from running a training facility when living in Montana before moving to Colorado. Malcolm informed me of how, when he moved to Colorado after his mom’s passing how Ben, even though he was unable to walk would still enjoy talking defensive tactics with Malcom and demonstrating C&R skills from his bed. He was interested in the tactics and skills Malcolm was being instructed in by the Colorado Springs Police Department.
Ben was truly a CQC lifer through and through, it was in his blood and I am pleased to read Malcolm’s words of how he even when confined to his bed kept his interest up with his trade right to the end.
This remembrance of Ben is from my recollections of our long CQB/CQC association and friendship.
I would like to convey my sincere condolences to the Mängels family and thank Malcolm and Dolly for their approval of this article on their late father.
I first heard of Ben Mängels AKA “the Mangler” in the mid-70s when Harry Baldock, my first unarmed combat instructor, told me of a group of unarmed combat proponents that had established an organisation called the Combat Training Team.
Ben was a member of the Combat Training Team which was later involved with the establishment of the Combat Military Advisors Group of which Ben was a director. This was an organisation of instructors of military unarmed combat and various fighting arts from around the world. Ben told me members came from a lot of backgrounds and with wide ranging military service records and expertise in military CQB and CQC as well as various fighting arts. It was during this era that his instructing included giving training to the British SAS.
The International Close Combat Instructors Association was established after the Combat Training Team ceased to exist and Ben was part of the initial development of the International Close Combat Instructors Association and was the Association first president, a position he held up until this passing. Ben had definite opinions on how the Association must be made up of instructors of military CQB/CQ C to the military and membership should not be based on martial arts, fighting arts or combat sports backgrounds.
Ben’s interest in fighting arts dates back to this first involvement with martial arts and when he was a young policeman in South Africa in the 1950s.
1954 Ben demonstrating a flying kick on Basil Korkie
Having to deal with sailors and street thugs on the tough streets of Durban, he soon realised he needed to upskill to protect himself and effectively perform his duties. He told me he had to settle for what training was available at the time, but always trained hard giving his very best and on-the-job soon identified what skills were effective or what were not.
He said his military service provided exposure and access to some training in military unarmed combat that was very different from competition or traditional type fighting arts, and he tracked down any instructor or exponent he could and trained with them or from them.
Ben had strong opinions on military CQB/CQ C and on related subjects and throughout this remembrance of Ben I will include some pertinent recollections on details as Ben conveyed to me.
Ben had a lifetime involvement, not only in military unarmed combat but also in fighting arts martial arts and combat sports. He had been a practitioner of jujitsu from age 18 and achieved his first black belt grade in 1954. He also passed black belt gradings in judo and karate and was a former South African middleweight judo champion and had trained in boxing and wrestling.
He developed his own fighting system that he instructed to his civilian understudies, that he called Atemi-Jujitsu.
Ben had read the material I had sent him on Harry Baldock and said to me that he was very much like my former instructor the late Harry Baldock when it came to Ju Jitsu training . He told me that to defeat fighting arts, having a level of knowledge of them is a must. His philosophy was to instruct only the more useful practical techniques from the traditional fighting arts and instruct them in a very European non-Eastern way. He was an innovator and developer of tactics and skills and would often modify skills he had learnt to make them safer and more effective. He told me that he called this hybridised techniques and I told him that I called it bastardised skills.
He would, like other military unarmed combat instructors, comment that a lot of fighting arts techniques origins were from ancient European military combat training and combat sports like pankration and gladiator combat before this.
He would say he knew more about Asian food than Asian martial arts and like Harry Baldock, Ben had a very European perspective in relation to Jiu Jitsu and methods of instructing it including in terminology.
He was held in high regard by his martial arts peers and had achieved the rank of 10th degree black belt. Ben during his military career in the capacity as a Chief Instructor of CQB/CQC trained the South African Navy Marines, Airforce Commandos and South African Army including the Reconnaissance Commandos.
Lieutenant Ben Mängels with Cheetah
Tex – One of Ben’s tracker dogs
Ben established the South African Army Commandos canine division, training not only protection and attack dogs but also mine detection and tracking dogs, and of a breeding programme he had been involved with for Alsatian dogs as he called them, this breeding program was to get big and aggressive attack dogs. Ben said how Rhodesian Ridgebacks were more natural protectors that not always responded well to forced man work and as such this is why he did not use them for attack work.
He told me that his basic training in unarmed combat in the military from some old-timer military instructors and soldiers although of limited options was some of the best, most proven and deadly methods.
Ben retired at the rank of Captain from the South African Air Force and moved to the US in 1987 where he continued to instruct and was also a freelance photographer.
I can’t remember the exact year when Ben and I first met but it was in the late 80s.
My first meeting with Ben at the Airport Dallas Texas
I was travelling and training in the US and Ben came to the airport in Dallas, Texas late at night to meet me during a short stopover I had there.
I later stayed with Ben at his home in Dallas, Texas where I underwent training in Ben’s military unarmed combat system, learnt of his attack dog training methods and assisted him training a group of Dallas police and a group of bank staff. I will go into some of the memories of this visit later in this my recollections of my combative connection and friendship with Ben.
In 2012 there was a period that I had no communication from Ben and was extremely concerned.
Below is an extract from an email I received from Ben in November 2012.
“My apologies for the delay in making contact with you, as I am adjusting to the indignity of being ensconced in a nursing home due to a failed lower spinal operation.”
Below is from my last email received from Ben in December 2012 in regards to him assisting me with the establishment of Todd systems CQC training in Africa.
“Geoff (Tank) Todd and I have worked together for some time now. He is a good and dedicated trainer and I recommend that you work with him any way you can.
Regrettably, I have no more contacts in S. Africa as it is now 25 years ago that I last communicated with them and have lost touch with all of them.
In what city will you be teaching CQC?
September is a good month to be in S.A. as it will be spring and the weather is good.”
From early 2013 the contact details I had for Ben became disconnected and I could not contact him.
Ben had a long and distinguished record of service in both law enforcement and the military and established many civilian training schools in South Africa and the United States.
He was quite a private person in relation to his family and certain aspects of his military and police careers and felt more comfortable talking about his record of military service and his instructing of military unarmed combat to fellow military instructors that were members of the International Close Combat Instructors Association.
Ben was a committed realist with his training and he was never afraid to keep learning, always striving for self-improvement to ensure the provision of the best training possible for his understudies.
He was not the type of man that would show weakness in any way and as such over his decades of training was well accustomed to the hard knocks and bumps that went with the territory, including the odd broken bones. In fact, I can remember Ben in a cast from the knee down as a result of training.
In his later years, he would contact me to ask my opinion and advice on training provision ideas that he was considering. Things like defence aerobics and methods of providing distance learning continuation training. He would ask about the legalities of some training provision and I was always pleased to hear from Ben and very happy to help him.
Ben asked me to assist Mike Nowick, an understudy of his in South Africa way back in the late 80s or early 90s, by writing a protective program for him and I have just recently made contact with Mike again while writing this story of Ben’s combative life. I still have the fine leather pistol satchel embossed with an elephant that Mike kindly sent me in appreciation. This is just one example of the connections formed through my work with Ben.
Ben told me that when he left South Africa he appointed Daya Moodaley to take charge of the South African Institute of Unarmed Combat. He described him as a completely trustworthy and dedicated martial artist.
Looking through the correspondence from Ben, I find notification of referrals he had sent to colleagues including an officer in the South African military on my behalf referring me as a close personal protection and CQC instructor.
Ben spoke at length about the differences between military unarmed combat training and about his civilian fighting arts and unarmed combat training provision. He told me the greatest influence and most useful methods for self-defence were those that he learned from his military unarmed combat training days and his association with other military unarmed combat proponents. He very much believed in less is more and the value of skills being battle proven.
Ben’s South African steering wheel technique and can opener termed neck break and a bag of other dirty tricks will always remind me of my time and training with Ben.
I’ve always been keen on training dogs for protection and attack work and when I found out that Ben was a canine training specialist, I was keen to learn all I could from him on the subject. My learning began when I went to stay with Ben in Dallas Texas and had to be gradually introduced to his two large German shepherds. I can remember him saying to me if we don’t give you a careful introduction at the start of your stay here, there is likely to be an incident, by an incident he meant I would get bitten. This took over an hour before I could drop my guard and direct any attention towards the dogs during this careful and slow introduction and these were sizeable German shepherds, in fact Ben gave a demonstration when he asked the large male dog to open its mouth fitting a basketball in there. These attack dog training methods Ben imparted to me have been so helpful over the years with training dogs.
On this visit, I assisted Ben in training a group of bank staff in self-protection. During the demonstration using his smasher keychain flail, the key ring component came apart sending keys flying and a bank staff member who was part of the demonstration turning away and bending over ground ward to avoid the flying keys.
The same week I assisted in training a group of Dallas police officers and was a victim of Ben’s mean sense of humour. I will never forget this incident that went like this. Ben asked me to demonstrate the quarter Nelson, half Nelson and full Nelson. He then asked me to demonstrate the Bulldog Nelson; I looked at him and muttered “what do you mean?” He said “come on, you come from New Zealand, a rugby country and home of the All Blacks and I come from South African where we have the Springbok rugby team, you must know the Bulldog Nelson.” I said that I had no idea. He told me to put the full Nelson on one of the attendees and then step by step instructed me to do the following, pull back into a front stance and with a compound grip on the head thrust forward and back and forward again with your hips and pelvis, he said, now you are doing the Bulldog Nelson. Something I have since repeated on other unknowing deserving exponents telling them of how this was one of Ben Mängels’ tricks.
Ben told me of an incident back in Africa when he was out in the wild and confronted by a group of aggressors out for blood. They had stick like clubs and he knew there was no escape, so decided the best option was to challenge the leader to do battle with one of their own weapons. Using his military combat riot stick expertise he destroyed his foes lower legs and then when he was on the ground targeted his upper quadrants. This saved his life and in the eyes of his downed foes comrades, Ben was now the superior warrior.
Ben was very interested in my training from Harry Baldock, Charles Nelson and Col Rex Applegate and said to me we are very fortunate to have Col Applegate as the Association patriarch and you being the only member to be trained by him is something very special.
I reminded him that Michael Janich also worked closely with Col Applegate on the production of point shooting videos. He replied I did not know that, but obviously Col Applegate is a good judge of character and knows a good man when he sees one as Mike is a real good guy.
Ben was the host for the first International Close Combat Instructor’s Association convention in Dallas Texas and I worked closely with him assisting setting this up.
The International Close Combat Instructors AssociationDirectors Tank Todd and Larry Jordan with President Ben Mängels, centre
In 1997 I arranged through Col Applegate and Col Brown of SOF to conduct the international close instructors Association convention at the soldier convention in Las Vegas and Ben got to meet Col Applegate and other members in person.
ICCIA Convention at the SOF Convention – 1997L-R – Tank Todd, Larry Jordan, Colonel Rex Applegate, Steve Mattoon,Capt Ben Mängels, Major John Whipp
He told me meeting Col Applegate was something he had always wanted to do and he very much enjoyed this opportunity and special occasion, including us all being invited as guests to a Special Ops convention.
Military CQB/CQC maintains a reasonably low profile and introductions and instructing work is often by referral and the basis of lifelong friendships. I can remember receiving a copy of a book from the author a long-term former SAS CQC instructor and wondering why he had sent it to me when I had never met him or had any previous contact with him. I mentioned this to Ben and he told me that this specific instructor had been a member of the Combat Training Team and he told him of me and my military instructing status.
Ben had been known as a Master of Mayhem and The Mangler, titles that were fitting in relation to his anything goes and the dirtier and deadlier the better mentality in relation to military armed and unarmed combat. He learned the hard way up against sailors and streetfighters as a young police officer in the port and streets of Durban and these were lessons he would never forget in regards to techniques that work and those that don’t.
He told me he soon found out that many of the techniques he had learnt from the traditional martial arts certainly did not work when there were no rules and the other guy was out to do you serious bodily harm and it was this reality that lead to his pursuit of military unarmed combat training.
Ben had an extensive knowledge of wide ranging fighting arts including Ninjitsu that he said was an Eastern martial arts based fighting art that was cloaked in mystery and included some techniques meant to kill. He also said many of the considered traditional fighting arts were from very different cultures and ancient times compared to the gun culture and modern day street violence.
He said the methods of training and testing were very different to military unarmed combat but he took techniques from such fighting arts and hybridised them when required and included them in his Atemi Jitsu that he taught to his civilian understudies.
Ben was knowledgeable in medical aspects of close combat and had his favoured bodily targets like the brachial plexus. He said the old brachial plexus is a good way to open up a sound guard and reduce defence capabilities.
One of Ben’s training partners for near on 20 years was a priest Derek Derbyshire. Ben referred to him as the fighting Reverend. Ben said he was a regional judo champion and he also was a Ju Jitsu Black belt. He told me this man of the cloth would show little mercy if attacked and believed it was his Christian duty to defend himself making a bad day for any would be attacked that tried his luck with the fighting reverend as Ben put it.
Ben asked me about how many years I had trained from Charlie Nelson and when I told him each year for just over 10 years, he asked me how I got along with Charlie and I told him really well and how generous and helpful he had been to me. He said he had met him only once when he visited Charlie’s self-defence school in New York and said they differed in opinion and that was the end of that. He did say that Charlie told him of us Kiwis that were his students.
I can remember Ben sending me a video tape he made for me of his armed combat skills including garrotting. Ben being a good photographer knew how to get the best shot and that often meant changing skills angles to get clean shots like in his sentry take out photos with a knife that would include text making sure we were informed the knife blade was vertical over being in the correct horizontal position for photographic purposes.
Ben very much enjoyed meeting Major Johnny Whipp at the convention in Las Vegas commenting on how he enjoyed Johnny’s Aussie sense of humour and liked the wedding tackle terminology Johnny used to describe the genitals.
There was a lot of backwards and forwards contact between Ben and I in the 1980s and 1990s with letters and packages arriving and being sent regularly. We exchanged skills videos tapes and training photos regularly and assisted each other with programs as well as introductions and kept in contact in regards to the association.
When I let Ben know Kobus Huisamen, a former South African kick boxing champion, had come Down Under to train, test, and qualify in New Zealand, Ben was pleased that a fellow countryman had done so, commenting that New Zealand was regarded by him as leaders in military unarmed combat. He said it was also good to see although Kobus was a champion fighter that he was not just relying on his combat sports and was preparing for everything.
Ben and I had a lot in common not only with our dedication to military unarmed combat but also by both coming from rugby crazy countries. I once told him about rugby league and how I played it as a school boy and how much I enjoyed it. He was interested in the rules and differences to rugby union and many years later I told Ben how when Larry Jordan was on one of his New Zealand visits and seen rugby league on TV he referred to it as combat football and this made Ben laugh.
Ben told me he really enjoyed his time in the Commandos where he started not only the dog section but also the unarmed combat group at the Brigadiers request . The Brigadier requested Ben introduced and established unarmed combat training for all pers. Ben, like all seasoned military close combat instructors knew what worked and what didn’t, he knew what was for the dojo, combat sports and what was for self-defence and close quarters combat on the battlefield.
It was the individual but important methods, like stamp kicking for close combat, over sweeping and tripping as in martial arts that got the job done as he put it when facing a dangerous enemy.
He understood weaknesses of the human anatomy and how to protect such vulnerable areas against injury. While he frowned upon demonstration type techniques he understood the general population’s unrealistic perception of martial arts techniques in relation to their personal self-defence and was aware with what was needed to get people’s attention when looking for self-defence training. Although he adapted to changing times in relation to promotion and marketing, he was committed to the best of dirty tricks brigade practices.
Ben was a quietly, extremely confident expert in CQC that got satisfaction from dirty and deadly tactics and skills of human destruction more than anything else. He did not take kindly to fools and would either ignore them or make his point of view in short sharp and clear terms or with definitive actions.
Ben is sadly another respected combative Master-Chief instructor member of the International Close Combat Instructors Association that has passed away in recent years. I will dearly miss our shared interest in CQB/CQC and close contact of close to 25 years.
The last time we spoke Ben asked me how my work in South Africa was going and if any of his former members of the South African unarmed combat institute had taken his advice to get on-board with my courses in South Africa. He said he had not met the current chap running his former South African Unarmed Combat Institute but that they could really benefit from training from me, a current military CQC instructor and getting the opportunity to test themselves on one of my tests phases.
Ben thought the phase tests we conduct were just the best for proving individuals worth as proponents and were so well structured. He really enjoyed the phase test DVDs I showed him and commented this is as close as it gets without loss of life or limb. Sadly he never got to hear of how well the courses are going in South Africa and of the good lads that have passed their test phases.
I’m sure he would be chuffed.
This has been but some of my fond memories of the good times I shared with my mate Ben.
Ben would usually sign off his correspondence to me with Hang Tuff something that he did all his life and now he can take leave and eternal rest knowing that he led by example and will be remembered by his CQC mates for his mental toughness and proven dirty tricks.
Rest in peace Ben.
