Fall 2026 Militaria and Aviation Auction
Lot 182:
Description
WWII U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Wrist Compass by Superior Magneto Corp., L.I. City, N.Y., dated 9-44, complete with original olive-drab web wrist strap This lot offers an original World War II U.S. Army Corps of Engineers wrist compass, manufactured under government contract by the Superior Magneto Corporation of Long Island City, New York, and dated September 1944 on the case edge. No individual name or unit marking appears on the piece, and as is typical of issue equipment of this kind, no separate biography or provenance trail accompanies it; the compass stands as a well-marked, dated example of a specific wartime contract pattern rather than an attributed named grouping. Liquid-damped wrist compasses of this pattern were procured by the Corps of Engineers under contracts running from 1943 into 1945 and issued widely through the final years of the war. They became closely associated with airborne troops and pathfinders, who wore them on the wrist, over a jacket sleeve, or lashed to a jump boot for instant, hands-free reference in the field, though the type was equally at home with forward infantry and other troops moving across unfamiliar ground. This example left the Superior Magneto factory floor in September 1944, the same month Allied airborne forces dropped into Holland during Operation Market Garden, and while the compass carries no documentation tying it to that operation specifically, its date places it squarely within the window of the airborne campaigns fought across northwest Europe that autumn. For a pathfinder, engineer, or rifleman navigating broken or unfamiliar terrain, an instrument that could be read at a glance without fumbling for a pocket compass was a genuine tactical asset. The compass is housed in a molded olive-drab thermoplastic case with a fully rotating, knurled bezel carrying crisp white degree graduations from 0 to 360 and cardinal points; a blued and luminous-tipped magnetic needle is visible beneath the crystal. The reverse is die-stamped in four lines,
Share this lot:
