Eaglemoss Military Watches Collection.

MWC 54 - British Soldier 1940s

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The Indonesian War of independence lasted from 1945 to 1949 and followed on directly from the Japanese surrender at the end of WW2. Towards the end of 1944 many Dutch civilians, living in what was then called the Dutch East Indies, were interred by the Japanese who had invaded, and many Dutch troops in the area were held in POW camps. The Japanese had supported, and even begun to provide formal training to the Indonesian nationalists, who had long been refused independence from the Netherlands.
The Dutch were hard pressed to get military support quickly enough to protect it's citizens in the area and actually approached the Japanese army to aid in policing the rapidly deteriorating situation. On the 30th of October 1945, in the city of Surabaya, 600 indian troops and their British commander were killed fighting an overwhelming number of Nationalist militia. The British retaliation, 10 days later, destroyed the city with Naval gunfire and Air bombardment.
The primary mission of the British in the area was the repatriation of thousands of Prisoners of war, but they were still in position to assist the Dutch forces. The British troops were highly trained, experienced and well equipped. They also were able to use powerful weapons like the Sherman and Stuart tanks, the light Stuart tanks were well suited to jungle terrain. The troops also used the latest versions of the British Army WWW (Wrist Watch, Waterproof) amongst the dozen suppliers was Buren, examples are fairly common to this day but as always with a watch of this period working examples in top condition are rare and can command high prices





Case
Polished 36mm case, 38.4mm with the*crown, 8mm deep.
42.6mm lug to lug. 18mm wide
Interior aperture 32.3mm across, 6mm deep. 5mm Crown, 31mm flat glass
Dial
31.5mm black dial. White printed rail-track minutes scale with yellow bars at 3,6 and 9. yellow dots at other hour points except 12 which has both.
Hours indicated with white Arabic numerals from 1 through 12 inclusive.
Hours hand and minutes hand painted Yellow with polished tips and a basic slim polshed seconds hand
Strap
Tan PU leather strap 18mm wide narrows to 16mm polished buckle. approx. fitting 170-215mm




The paint finish on the hands is very uneven, the regular straight line brighter patches on the minute hand are paint defects, not shadows, and the hour hand has 'orange peel' bubbles.I would complain but I doubt there would be a high chance of getting a perfect set


I don’t think there is time left to produce every variant of the British WWW watch from the era, but they are giving us a good cross section, here are 5 of the previous incarnations

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