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Always wondered what exactly sat on the wrist of this American WWII P-51 Mustang pilot 馃槙
.
I really liked this watch when I saw it announced in a magazine and almost ordered one. Luckily I saw one at the dealer and had a chance to try it on, its substantially larger that the piece it is represented to honour, which wouldn't be so bad but I'm a skinny bastard and the damn thing nearly spanned my arm! Dammit...
Lucky for me, the real things aren't that expensive and they're the right size for us stick bug types! (see RCAF A-11 in above post)
Military watches group shots.
Care to share where the tan textured straps on the Chrono鈥檚 are from?
Thanks Obstando for posting. Do you have a favourite?
Normally I would say a white dialed A11, but the step at the lugs where it meets the bezel isn鈥檛 in line with any of the A11鈥檚, so it鈥檚 anyone鈥檚 guess.
Interesting. Looks like a non-hacking Ord watch rather than the hack setting A11鈥檚. Did you find a date on that and a spec sheet? May be pre-war?
And now I have to hunt for one of these too.
Problematic to answer you properly.
The tech manual is dated April 1945, so these watches were in the ordnance system at that time. There is a mention that this case is a waterproof case that supercedes a previous version. It has a 987A movement. It is likely that it was originally issued before the start of WWII, but was updated then. I would suspect that a person would exchange his watch for a different one rather than wait for the watchmakers to service it and return it, much like any other piece of ordnance equipment. The "using arm" would only be authorized to perform certain small tasks, but anything more major, like watch servicing or replacing the barrel on a rifle, would be returned to ordnance for repair and a replacement issued. During a service, if there was a change to be applied, for example updating the case to waterproof, that would happen given availabllity of parts in stock.
This particular watch would have an OD stamped on the back followed by a serial number. "OD" represents a 17-jewel watch.
The actual technical manual is available as a scan on archive.org. I own a paper copy, and they are found from time to time on eBay.