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M8 A1 Scabbard WD with DAS


Misfit 45
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Hi Folks,

This one is very interesting. It's a very nice WD marked M8A1 scabbard, but on the back of the body is an inked DAS mark. In Gary Cunningham's book, it says that this inked DAS has its only appearance (on an M8A1 scabbard) on the Victory Plastics (VP) scabbard in 1960. There is a larger version on the Vietnam era M1917 scabbard, however. Knowing how thoroughly Gary researched this topic, I can safely say that this WD scabbard has never been documented. Get out your scabbards and check to see if you have a DAS. Thanks for looking.

Marv

Also, this WD scabbard has a VP/9 on the underside of the top plate which may suggest that WD and Victory Plastics had some kind of association.

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Just a guess of course. the scabbard body may have sat in a warehouse for years until someone found them and said hey these are still good to use and then were shipped to Phil. PA. and used on the Working Disabled M8A1 contract. during my service we used to find all kinds of gear in our supply house that got forgotten. we quickly put it to use no matter the age as long as it was in serviceable condition.

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That's as good an idea as any. However, the "WD" designation is not one that is usually associated with Philadelphia. PWH and TWB are the ones referenced whenever Philadelphia is mentioned. Workhome for the Blind, or The Working Blind are the two entities that made M8A1 scabbards in Philadelphia. Apparently, no one really knows who WD is. I cannot recall where Victory Plastics was located. Maybe WD was a subcontractor of Victory Plastics.

Marv

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Victory Plastics was located in Hudson, MA in the early 1970's the Working Blind changed there name to the Working Disabled. about the same time as the WD M8A1 scabbard contract.

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Interesting! I did not know that they changed their name a second time. Thanks for the info about Victory Plastics. Ive learned that VIZ's contract for 50,000 came at the end of the Work Home participation in M8A1 contracts. That might show a connection with the "Working Disabled". The VIZ/WD marked scabbards may have some kind of association with The Working Blind. Don't want to spread any rumors though. Do you know where I can find out about the name change to "Working Disabled"?

 

Marv

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I don't think there is a person who can tell you this info. what i know about the name change came from some old gov. contract paperwork that came up from the nat. archives on the scabbards contracts from around 1970-71 it showed the name Working Disabled with the same address as The Working Blind that is where the connection was made. i only saw this paperwork one time about 10 years ago but i know it was obtained through freedom of information.

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I'll probably always wonder why put a DAS mark on the sheath? I've got two V.P. Co. sheaths with VP /5 on them. One is a 1953 configuration and the other a 1960.

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I re-read an article by Ralph Cobb, in the SABC Journal, Spring 2015. He says that the final TWB contract for M8A1 scabbards started in 1969 and ended in May 1970. After that, "the government continued contracting with the Working Home for brooms, mops, rugs, and other household goods." Back in January 1970, TWB merged with the "Pennsylvania Home for Blind Women, Inc.". With this merger, they changed their identity to the "Center for the Blind.

Viz Manufacturing (VIZ) had a contract for M8A1s in 1969 which ran concurrently with TWB, but it was a relatively small contract which produced 50,735 scabbards.

Quoting Ralph Cobb again, "The appearance of 'VIZ/WD' marked scabbards, where it appears that the 'WD' was added as an afterthought, suggests that there may have initially been an expectation that Viz Manufacturing Co. would produce more scabbards for a longer period of time than occurred. The identity of the manufacturer represented by the marking 'WD' remains unknown."

The question is, did the VIZ contract include WD as a subcontractor, or did WD take over the VIZ contract and mark their own WD on the scabbard? If WD M8A1s were made circa 1969-1970, why were they made with both the long and short top plate extension?

Most of the WDs I see are pretty beat up, yet PWH scabbards can be had in mint condition.

I'm just glad I found a nice one that has the added peculiar bonus of having a DAS stamp!

Marv

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Made a quick survey and found 4 WD marked M8A1 scabbards in my collection. They are as follows:

#1 - DAS stamp on back; Vp 9 top plate; Vp 40 body

#2 - No DAS; unmarked top plate and body.

#3 - No DAS; Vp 9 top plate; Vp 30 body.

#4 - No DAS; Vp 1 top plate; Vp 25 body; non-reinforced tip

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remman,

How about the top plate extensions. Long or short? Thanks for the inventory. I was surprised to see a non-reinforced tip. Maybe cavtrpr340 was on to something. WD just bought a whole pile of scabbard bodies and put together them together with their own metal top pieces. (still doesn't explain the short top plate extensions)

Marv

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Hi misfit,

All four have the long top plate extension.

 

Even the VP 1 marked one has the long top plate extension to fit the M5 and M6 bayonets? Gary had stated that he felt the conversion from short extension, (the M3 and M4) to the long happened around VP 3.

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Yes, the Vp 1 I have listed does have the long extension. Bayonetman pictures a long extension Vp 1 in the link you provided earlier. I wonder if it's possible that WD acquired leftover top plate flats that already had the Vp 1 mark and subsequently had them bent with the long extension.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Interesting! I did not know that they changed their name a second time. Thanks for the info about Victory Plastics. Ive learned that VIZ's contract for 50,000 came at the end of the Work Home participation in M8A1 contracts. That might show a connection with the "Working Disabled". The VIZ/WD marked scabbards may have some kind of association with The Working Blind. Don't want to spread any rumors though. Do you know where I can find out about the name change to "Working Disabled"?Marv

 

Victory Plastics was located in Hudson, MA in the early 1970's the Working Blind changed there name to the Working Disabled. about the same time as the WD M8A1 scabbard contract.

 

At no time did I find evidence that the Working Home changed its name to Working Disabled or any other name that contained the word disabled. The dissertation by George Kettel runs to 494 pages and contains an exhaustive corporate history of the Working Home from its inception in 1874 to its closing in 1978. The word disabled only appears a handful of times and never as an organizational name. I searched NARA for both terms and do not find any such contractor. If anyone has evidence of the existance of a contract under the contractor name Working Disabled, I would really appreciate seeing it.

 

That's as good an idea as any. However, the "WD" designation is not one that is usually associated with Philadelphia. PWH and TWB are the ones referenced whenever Philadelphia is mentioned. Workhome for the Blind, or The Working Blind are the two entities that made M8A1 scabbards in Philadelphia. Apparently, no one really knows who WD is. I cannot recall where Victory Plastics was located. Maybe WD was a subcontractor of Victory Plastics.

Marv

One of the challenges we have in sorting this out is that we dont even know who supplied the plastic scabbard bodies or steel throatpieces to the Working Home. We just know that they were supplied. Although VIZ Mfg. was capable of producing both, we also dont know whether they made these parts for their own contract or received them from another source, as did the Working Home. Since publication of my article, additional evidence surfaced confirming that the earlier 1967 VIZ contract was, indeed, for machete scabbards. Frank Trzaska acquired a VIZ machete scabbard in the packaging, dated 1967.

 

WD is a real stumper. The use of VP parts that, presumably, predate the Working Home contracts and the VIZ/WD throatpieces that, presumably, postdate the 1969 VIZ production presents a real conundrum.

 

Ralph

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Ralph,

I appreciate your input. Thank you for taking the time. The additional VIZ info is a nice addition to my tiny knowledge base. BTW....What article and where can it be found?

Marv

Sorry, Ralph, I didn't make the connection between you and the SABC article I referenced until I clicked on your facebook link. Thanks again.

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You're welcome. When I wrote the article, all I could get were a dozen or so pages of the Kaufmann Report, because the library worker simply didn't want to do the copying. I offered to pay and that didn't matter. I took another shot at obtaining a complete copy in hopes that the passage of time and a different worker might yield results. If we could determine who manufactured the plastic scabbard bodies and metal throatpieces for the Working Home, it would put us one step closer to WD.

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