Lemania watches issued to the British military Features of Fleet Air Arm watches

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Lemania watches issued to the British military Features of Fleet Air Arm watches

Today I'd like to talk to you about a Lemania watch, which is quite a mysterious watch.

I'll talk about a simple classification of Lemania, and this is a fairly minor topic, but these Lemania watches come in first, second and third models.

We have a detailed explanation of Lemania watches from first to third here, so please take a look when you have time.

Some of you may not want to watch the video, so I'll give you a quick explanation.

Please see the table below.

In terms of classification, if it does not have an asymmetrical case, it is classified as either "first" or "second."
Therefore, I think this watch can be classified as either a first or second.

However, generally speaking, the numbers 12 and 6 on the dial should be larger like this.

Now let's take a look at this watch.

As you can see, the numbers 12 and 6 are not large.

So it's not your average Lemania watch...
That's when I realized.

So, which stage does this dial resemble in features to the one provided for?

That would be the submarine crew.

In fact, Lemania produced a small number of chronographs for the British military, air force, and navy, as well as for submarine crew members.

And this brings up another question: the watches issued to submarine crew members do not contain luminous paints such as radium or tritium on the outside of the hands and dials so as not to set off radiation detectors.

However, this watch does have luminous paint on both the hands and the outside of the dial.

There is no round T sign indicating that it has been replaced with tritium, so radium has been used.
Radium was used up until the first model, but was replaced by tritium from the second model onwards, so this watch is classified as a first model.

In this way, it is a contradictory watch that has the characteristics of a submarine crew member, but also contains radium, which should not be found on a submarine.

Now, there are some clues on the back cover, so let's try to decipher them.

The back cover is engraved with 0552/920/3305.

First of all, the 0552 represents the Navy.
By the way, there is also a 6BB version, which represents the Air Force.

Basically, either of these comes first,
924/3306
It continues:

The submarine crew mentioned earlier were classified as naval, so the first code would be 0552, then 924, and finally 3312 instead of 3305.

Now, speaking of the back cover of this watch, first of all it has 0552, so it is classified as naval.
The next problem is that 920 comes and becomes 3305, which does not conform to the rules so far.

After some research I found out that 920/3306 stands for "Naval Fleet Air Arm."

So what is the Naval Fleet Air Arm? It refers to the crew of helicopters and fighter jets aboard aircraft carriers.

Therefore, this watch was issued to helicopter and fighter pilots on aircraft carriers.


It took quite a while to get to this point.
Because all I knew was the Air Force, the Navy, and the lesser known submarine crew.

Now this is just my speculation, but I think 920 probably represents the aircraft carriers and the last 3305 represents the Fleet Air Arm.

summary

So that's how I explained to you today about the Lemania watches that were issued to the Naval Fleet Air Arm.

The most fun thing about vintage watches is learning about a world that you don't yet know about.

By knowing who used the watch and for what purpose, we feel a greater attachment to the watch and a greater sense of romance.