NEW MEMBER NEEDS HELP IDENTIFYING JAPANESE INSTRUMENT

[Tim S]

Hello! I am a new member from Vancouver, Washington.

 

I ran across a WWII era Japanese instrument from, what I think is, either a navy airplane or ship. My father brought it back from the Pacific during the war. Unfortunately, the photos exceed this site's limit. If there is anyone in the group that is an authority on WWII Japanese aircraft instruments please let me know and I can send the photos via email. Hopefully, someone will know what this item is.

Thank you for your assistance. Tim

 

P.S. Here is some info that I received from another military forum site:

 

Been having a look at it – I can’t say I’ve seen an instrument exactly like this one before. The only symbols I recognize are those for ‘warfare,’ ‘bulls-eye/target’ and ‘airplane.’ I’d hazard it’s part of an aircraft-mounted compass (or vector) bombsight. The compass bombsights I have seen are complex devices with many parts – angle calculators, a clock, etc. – which is why I suspect this is a replacement part (see image: “Assembled compass bombsight”).

 

One more inference – and I want to stress this more of a hunch – but the lack of written cardinal directions (NE, SW, etc.) makes me wonder if this is an Army bombsight – Navy bombsight compasses had cardinal directions as well as bearings (see image: “IJN bombsight).

 

No idea if that’s helpful – not an identification but an “educated” guess.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Eric Queen]

I suggest resizing the photos and posting them.