This Elgin canteen-style USN BUSHIPS watch is an incredibly cool, purpose-built classic from WWII. ‘BUSHIPS,’ which stands for the United States Navy’s Bureau of Ships, was a group established by Congress on June 20, 1940 (and abolished by 1966) to supervise procurement, overall design, construction, conversion, maintenance, and repair of ships for the Navy. The establishment also managed shipyards and the many tasks involved with keeping operations running smoothly.

These Elgin USN canteen watches were issued to the NCDU (members of the Naval Combat Demolition Units) and underwater demolition teams (UDT) – the teams responsible for clearing the harbors and obstructions within them during the war. As a result, those men needed robust watches that could withstand a whole lot of underwater activity – and since the crown is one of the most common places for water to sneak into a watch case, Elgin and other watch companies engineered the seemingly overkill design of the chained crown cover.

This is an incredibly rare and very cool timepiece with a ton of military panache – and probably more than a few stories to tell if it was able to talk.  

SPECS

CASE & BRACELET

The anti-reflective stainless steel case is in remarkably crisp condition considering its legacy and likely use case. The bead-blasted smooth bezel also is in exceptional condition. The case retains its original unsigned bead-blasted crown, which seats underneath the watertight "canteen" style screw-down outer crown cover. The case back retains its original "USN BUSHIPS" marking, with some tooling marks present. The watch comes supplied on an era-correct two-piece "OD Green" canvas strap. 

DIAL & HANDS

The matte black dial is in overall very impressive condition, especially when considering the age of the watch, featuring a very cool moisture indicator nestled on the outside edge of the dial between 7 and 8 o'clock. If you look closely, the words ELGIN and USN BUSHIPS are debossed in tonal black below 12 o'clock and above 6 o'clock, respectively. The original radium lume plots have aged to a creamy beige coloration that matches the inlaid lume within the syringe-style hands perfectly. Under UV light inspection, the lume in both the dial and hands exhibits no degradation and remains in seemingly perfect condition.

ACCESSORIES 

None. The watch is functioning and keeping time perfectly, The watch appears to have been serviced in 2002, and 2019 based on the internal inscriptions of the case back.