United States: Massachusetts, Hanover / ca 1940
Marine Compass Co. Dry Card Compass
Marine Compass Co. Dry Card Compass
The Smithsonian catalogs Marine Compass Co. Dry Card Compass as nautical compass (dry card) in its World War II records.
WHY IT’S INTERESTING
This compass has a metal bowl gimbal mounted in a wooden box. It was used on a lifeboat of the SS Alcoa Mariner, an American freighter torpedoed by a German submarine in September 1942. Frank B. Hodges, a sailor on the Alcoa Mariner, gave it to the Smithsonian. The inscriptions read "M. C. CO." and "ALCOA MARINER." The former refers to the Marine Compass Company, a firm that was established in Han