William Ewart Fairbairn (1885–1960) 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 tactics. Notably, this included innovative pistol shooting techniques and the development of the Fairbairn-Sykes fighting knife.

The television series Secrets of War suggested him as a possible inspiration for James Bond.

Defendu is a modern martial art developed by William E. Fairbairn and Eric Anthony Sykes. It is a hand to hand combat system based on jujutsu that was developed to train the Shanghai Municipal Police, and was later taught in expanded form to Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and Special Operations Executive (SOE) members during World War II.[1]

帕拉丁重印版所用的母版是當年費爾白恩簽贈給艾德森中校的.