U.S. MILITARY CLOCKS

Here is an interesting thread regarding U.S. military clocks (aircraft, navy, and medical). Some good material here - worth checking out.

Best regards,
Greg

Very nice, thanks Greg. The only one I would question slightly is one of the ones labeled WW I - the one that has the A.S. on the dial. The Air Service wasn't created until the last months of WW I and it lasted until 1926. So far all of the A.S. marked clocks I have seen that still have their original movements are post-war. Otherwise this is a great collection and it is great to see so many good examples in one place.

Greg ,A fantastic thread and great clocks,Thanks for finding and sharing it.

Jim ,I think that he "AS" is probably not for Air Service but for "Aviation Section" of the Signal Corps which it was known as from 1914 to 1918
and so I do not think "AS" would be an improper marking but I could be wrong ,Greg is the expert .

As far as I know from serial numbers, Jim is correct regarding the meaning and vintage of A.S. marked dials. Clocks marked ASSC are the ealier ones of the Aviation Section of the Signal Corps. The serial numbers of the last three ASSC clocks I have owned were all from 1916-17.

Best regards,
Greg

I see what you and Jim are talking about now,I stand corrected . I was spending more time on the photos then the discriptions, that is a great collection, great decorator too. I knew a captain that did his house like a ship and droped the ceilings as well .

Best Regards
Anthony

You can get a good idea of the timeframe of U.S. aircraft clocks (at least the army ones) by the markings on the dial or the dataplate due to their changing the official name of the service so many times. Navy ones are a little harder since they did not change their name over the years. When it was called the Aviation Section of the Signal Corps, they were very consistent in using the marking A.S.S.C. not only on clocks, but all of the other instruments found in the cockpits of their aircraft along with all other kinds of equipment. After they changed the name to Air Service during May-August of 1918 (it took a few months to finalize everything), they were again very consistent in marking everything with A.S. only. When they changed the name to Army Air Corps in July, 1926 they used either AAC or AC, then when they changed to Army Air Force in June, 1941 they used AAF, and finally when they changed to Air Force in September, 1947 they used USAF or sometimes just AF.

The design you see on the Walthams from both A.S.S.C. and A.S. eras is pretty much the same and with the movements and cases being pretty standardized. The movements in these are the same design as ones that were used not only in aircraft clocks but also car clocks and desk clocks. While I believe the majority of these Waltham A.S.S.C. and A.S. aircraft clocks that you run across have their original movements, you should not be surprised if you find a few with movements that were changed at some point in time. Sometimes you can find something like a late teens or early 1920s movement in an A.S.S.C. marked clock, or a mid-teens movement in an A.S. marked clock which tells you that the movement was replaced at some point.

Thanks,I did not know that about A.S., you learn something new every day. Who's book do you like the best as far as Military timepieces ?

It depends on what kind of clocks I am trying to research as different reference books focus on different countries. The two I reach for most often are Whitney (American) and Wesolowski (British) but I find both frustratingly incomplete. I would like to buy a copy of Knirim as everything I've seen of it is absolutely top quality but the prices of most of the authentic German military timepieces are so high that I don't collect them and so I've never invested the substantial amount of money this book costs.

Whitney and Wesolowski tend to be a good place to start but I find them equally frustrating in that they don't answer so many key questions. To add to my knowledge that I can't find in such books I've done a fair amount of personal research at the National Air and Space Museum library and I have peeked into a lot of old aircraft cockpits in many aviation museums around the world to see what they have in them. I've also corresponded with others who have this interest to exchange information.

I've been collecting aircraft clocks off and on for a couple of decades and so I've seen a fair number of them. I've spent a fair amount of time looking at old automobile clocks to teach myself how to tell the differences between these and aircraft clocks. In many cases the differences are obvious, but in other cases it is less so.

Finally, I was a pilot for a long time where I had practical experience with quite a few modern era (post WW II) clocks and pilot watches.