The US military saw the success of German paratroopers in 1940, and quickly set about creating its own elite airborne units. US paratroopers jumped on Sicily in Operation Husky in 1943, dropped into Normandy during the D-Day invasion in 1944, fought through the hedgerows of France until the breakout at St. Lo, jumped on Holland in the ill-fated “bridge too far” attempt of Operation Market Garden, held the line at Bastogne during the “Battle of the Bulge”, and “jumped over the Rhine” in Operation Varsity in March 1945. Their exploits were legendary. US paratroopers of WW2 were all volunteers, pushed to top levels of physical fitness, mental toughness, and esprit de corps by rigorous jump training, and they played a pivotal role in the Allied victory. Those "devils in baggy pants" were issued the classic M-2 “press button” jump knife to be carried in the small zippered pocket at the upper left front placket of the jump jacket. The knife was designed to allow a paratrooper to cut tangled shroud lines if his parachute became ensnared in a tree, or if he dropped into a body of water, the latter a terrifying scenario made all the more possible on D-Day once Rommel ordered the fields of Normandy flooded in anticipation of an Allied airborne landing. The earliest M-2 jump knives were made by Schrade Cut Co. of Walden, New York, and featured genuine jigged bone handle scales with no hanging bale. This US Army WW2 D-Day Paratrooper Airborne Schrade Cut Co. Early M-2 Press Button Jump Knife is in Good Condition, with some light side to side loosening to the blade when in the open and locked position, some light rounding to the blade tip, some sharpening to the blade edge, some light chipping to the upper blade edge, some cleaning, scratching, and pitting at each side of the blade, some cleaning, scratching, and pitting to the spine of the handle, a small chip in the lower right side of the left handle scale, missing the pin from the top left handle scale, and with some overall age wear evident. Most interestingly, it features a 3 3/4” bright clip point bowie blade with a fully functional press button opening and closing mechanism, sports elegant genuine jigged bone handle scales each secured by 5 metal pins (the left scale only has 4 remaining as mentioned), and is stamped at the ricasso with its maker, the famous “SCHRADE / CUT. CO. / WALDEN, N.Y.”, along with 4 lines of patent information marked at the reverse ricasso. It boasts a fully functional slide lock mechanism (when slid up the press button is locked, when slid down the press button is unlocked), exhibits no hanging bale, distinguishing it as a scarce early piece, and is a fine example of a very rare, original US Army WW2 D-Day Paratrooper Airborne Schrade Cut Co. Early M-2 Press Button Jump Knife.