Sextant
date: label: date made
content: 1940-1945
name: label: maker
content: H. Hughes & Son, Ltd.
notes: label: Description
content: This sextant has a frame of blackened brass. The inscriptions read "H. HUGHES & SON LTD. LONDON" and "44164" and "MADE IN ENGLAND." The silvered scale is graduated every degree from -5° to +130° and read by ivory micrometer with electric light to 10 seconds of arc. The batteries for the light are in the handle of the instrument. Hughes was making micrometer sextants by the early 1930s.
label: Description
content: Steven Memoli bought this sextant in Cardiff, Wales, in 1944. He spent the war years transporting troops from the U.S. to Europe and North Africa, and also participated in the Normandy invasion. Several years after the war, having been prodded by the U.S. Circuit Court, the Department of Defense granted veteran’s status to Memoli and other merchant seamen of his ilk.
label: Description
content: Ref: Henry Hughes & Son, Ltd., <i>Sextants and General Navigational Instruments</i> (London, 1938).
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United Kingdom: England, London
topic: label: Subject
content: World War II
label: related event
content: World War II
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Physical Sciences
label: See more items in
content: Navigation
label: See more items in
content: Measuring & Mapping
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Steven Memoli
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1989.0548.01
label: catalog number
content: 1989.0548.01
label: accession number
content: 1989.0548
objectType: label: Object Name
content: sextant
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: mahogany (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: brass (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: radius: 6 in; 15.24 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall in case: 5 5/8 in x 10 3/8 in x 10 9/16 in; 14.2875 cm x 26.3525 cm x 26.82875 cm