Can anyone identify this clock?

Hello, I am new to the forum. Thanks for looking at my post!
A friend of mine gave me this clock and said it was a WWII Navy ship clock. I tells military time. Can anyone verify that or have any info?
Thanks in advance,
Shawn

 

is it a count down clock?

 

I don't believe so. It tells standard military time like a regular time clock.

 

digital?? WW2? doesn't look WW2ish to me

 

All I know is that my friend's dad gave it to her and said it came from a WWII Navy ship. Her husband also said that her father could've made it as he was a type of inventor. I do know that it also starts at 00:00 when it reaches midnight and that it works.

 

typical USN type WWII ship clock looks something like this


Mine was made in 1942 and looks just like it. I have mounted in my office at work, have to wind every Monday, 14 turns. Keeps perfect time.

You'd find these mounted in various places all over the ship with a QM of one class or another wandering around on set schedule ensuring each is wound and showing the correct time. Can be as task as one moves from timezone to timezone.

 

It reminds me of a time card machine, to clock in and out or stamp a time. Is there a slot on top or under the knob ledge?

 

No digital clocks on WWII ships.

All you see is the type shown above when you Google.

 

.maybe a modernized WW2 ship after WW2?

 

.....come to think of it, I was on an LPH, LHA, and 2 LSTs in the late 80s, and I don't remember any digital clocks.--nothing like the OP picture .....I remember dial clocks--I think--this was a long time ago..of course I had a watch all the time, that's how I checked the Tango

 

Interesting info! I guess this may remain a mystery! I've gotten no results from clock enthusiast forum either! Thanks for all of the replies!

 

No, no slots. The knob on the left side unscrews to open the clock face so as to use the attached key for winding it . . . every clock had a key, all interchangeable with one another so you never had a "oh crap, the key to the ships' clocks just went overboard" moment.

Mechanical, hand wound clocks were de rigueur . . . there was an apparent preference over electrical drive due to all the things, and there were many, that could go wrong with ship's electrical systems. One also finds them on walls in shore establishments . . . old benign habits die hard.

Ships' chronometers the same way. The really good ones had to be wound about every 40 hours and woe be to he who would even attempt to open one. It was, I believe, the ship's navigator who was responsible for keeping it wound. These were set to GMT for navigation purposes, something one ensured before leaving port, and were not adjusted for local time. I've a really nice boxed Hamilton ships chronometer, though I don't operate it simple because it is a PITA to remember to wind it. Mine looks something like this one, though mine has handles on the sides of the box to make it easier/safer to carry:



Nowadays, while these are nice to have and add a certain nostalgic panache to one's vessel, but to really use one requires a well working knowledge of celestial navigation; modern chronometers tend to have quartz drive and can be corrected via GPS.

Search around on the WWW and one can find where folks often inquire with Hamilton, and in the case of the earlier shown ships wall clock, Chelsea Clock Company, about trying to match the serial number with a ship, but all the number tells you is when timepiece was made. The Navy did not keep track of which clock went where. When a ship was taken out of commission one of the tasks was to remove all the wall clocks and take them in for cleaning, re-calibrating, to be stored and issued to some other ship, so a given clock might have had use on more than one ship. Same for chronometers in their day, issued to the ship and on decommissioning, or when the recipient of a really hard jar, taken in for the cleaning & re-calibration treatment and readied for re-issue. Though, obviously, they can be had. Both of mine, wall clock and chronometer, I inherited from my father . . . where he got them, goodness knows.

Visited the Chelsea Clock Company once in my misspent youth. My father had CarDiv14 in 1965-1966 and we had quarters at the old Chelsea Naval Hospital; Dad decided he want to go look at the source of all the clocks he'd seen on ships since a midshipman, so off we went. Not terribly exciting for an 8th grader (blowing through BAR magazines at empty boxes off the fantail of USS Wasp while at sea was much more exciting), they were making clocks, but there we were, where all these clocks are made.

R