POLISH PARACHUTE KNIFE WP-D 53. Slight, natural signs of use. Extremely sharp. Its intended use was to cut parachute lines immediately in emergency situations. There's a slight cut on the leather sheath.
The 1965 parachute knife is a specialized design developed by Zdzisław Werschner and intended for airborne troops. This airborne parachute rescue knife is used for emergency severing of parachute cords. The knife has a wooden (beech) handle, modeled after the 1955 assault knife, with the difference being that the metal cap of the pommel incorporates a loop that extends the blade's tang. This loop serves to thread a safety cord tied to the parachute harness and protects the knife from loss. Furthermore, the shape of the fitting at the bottom of the handle has been changed due to the lack of a crossguard. The chrome-plated, double-edged, symmetrical blade, 134 mm long, excluding the point, is made of 50 HSa steel; polished on both sides, it creates two concave blades. At the base of the blade, on the left flat, the series and the knife number are embossed (initially, only the number was embossed, later a series with a letter designation was introduced); On the opposite side, the number "53" in an oval - the code symbol of the production plant, below are the capital letters "WP-D" denoting the abbreviation of the Airborne Troops.
The leather sheath without a frog has four circular stirrups for attaching to a reserve parachute cover. The knife was manufactured by Widzew Textile Machine Factory "WIFAMA" in Łódź. In the knives from the first production runs, the handles were mounted on the tang with two brass rivets. Similar to the 1955 model assault knives, this was due to the fact that the handles were supplied by Zakłady Metalowe "ŁUCZNIK" in Radom. In 1987, the factory produced the last batch of 500 knives. After the plant was transformed into a company, a small batch of knives was produced in the 1990s, mainly for collectors, differing in markings and manufacturing method. design of the Polish knife pattern 1965, in the 1970s a similar version of the parachute knife was developed in the former GDR. The Hungarian army also had an identical type of knife in its equipment.
