Eaglemoss Military Watches Collection.

[Churchy]

Issue 9 - 1940s Japanese Airman

Produced for the Japanese Imperial Navy by the Seikosha watch company, originals are extremely rare and command high prices particularly in the Japanese market.
Japanese pilots where the elite, and the training programme rigorous and often brutal, the numbers of pilots that qualified could not keep up with the losses they suffered.




Case
48.1mm plated and polished finish. folded detail finish around bezel. 501mm including crown, 546mm lug to lug, 9.4mm deep. 43.6mm interior aperture.
6mm grooved crown. 41.5mm flat glass.
case back engraved with “1940s Japanese Pilot".
Dial
43mm black painted dial with red seconds markers and white Arabic numbers at 5 sec/min intervals on the outside ring.
On a smaller secondary scale white markers and Yellow and White vintage style Arabic hour numerals on the inner ring
White vintage style hours and minutes hands with Breguet Pomme style point. Straight white seconds hand.
There is no luminous effect anywhere on this watch.
Standard EM Epson AL55a movement.
Strap
24mm dark tan leather, tapers slightly to a 22mm polished buckle, aprox 180-220mm fitting, note the watch lugs are small and flat on a large case, so measurements will be inaccurate on smaller size wrists.
Originally these watches were made to be worn over a thick flight suit and came on a leather strap that could wrap around a bare wrist twice over.



Side by side with the Issue 2 German Luftwaffe watch. From the same era, and intended for the same function, the two are very similar in design and both have the B-Uhr, type-B style dial. The Japanese watch is slightly bigger overall.

The Seikosha watch has refined the German design and given it a distinctly Japanese quality. A number of companies produce high quality reproduction versions of this watch type.


Which watch today Churchy?