Kinfe from Spitfire survival kit

[Alain57]

Hello ,
Some days ago i saw in a museum a survival kit from a Spitfire pilot.A very strange thing in it was a knife , it had a orange handle( grip), the blade was curved shaped and there were seven little holes ( 5-6 mm ) in the blade and one bigger hole ( 12 mm ) at the front of the blade. Whats the purposes of these holes ?

[Jon]

Sounds like it was a floating survival knife supplied with a dinghy.
The handle would have been made of cork and the blade curved and blunted at the end to prevent an unlucky crewman "sticking" the dinghy and getting another swim.
As for the holes
Not got a clue....!

[PeterVerney]

The holes were to lighten it, it was a floating knife remember

[Jon]

When you look at the size of the holes, compared to the over sized cork handle i really dont think the holes made any difference in its ability to float!
Maybe they did have a purpose, the whole point of a survival item is it has several uses.