(established in 1934 and not related to Fujii Brothers) began producing optical glass and lenses. Before the outbreak of World War II, the company became Tokyo Kogaku Kikai (Tokyo Optical), and began using the Toko mark on binoculars during WWII. In 1934, Hattori Tokei Ten, a clock manufacturer, began making photographic lenses. Because of hardships importing German optical glass during World War I (1914-1918), Japanese officials mandated the design and production of lenses, which began in 1918 at Nippon Kogaku (Japan Optical Company), the forerunner of Nikon.
The first Japanese binocular manufacturer was Fujii Brothers, which produced its first models in 1911. After the war, American service personnel took pairs home as trophies, including Admiral Chester Nimitz. War Department handbook raved about Japan’s “outstanding” binoculars, and the Allies reverse-engineered the technology. giant binoculars used during WWII were chiefly copied from captured Japanese models.
and Britain focused on developing radar, the Japanese largely ignored the new technology their superiority in the optics of binoculars led them to think they didn’t need it. The 100mm, 20x instruments designed by Nikon became the templates for ones used on British warships until the turn of the 21st Century.ĭuring the 1930s and 1940s, while the U.S. These huge brass-and-steel instruments (many of them built by Nippon Kogaku, a supplier that became Nikon) are often large enough to fit a human head inside, with lenses that absorb up to 980 times more light than the human eye, offering a view of objects up to 20 miles away. The aim of such huge binoculars is to funnel in as much light as possible. On Japanese warships, naval binoculars were positioned on towers 90 feet high, with a primary mission to spot Allied ships. During the Pacific War of WW2, it was the principal opponent of the Western Allies. In the 1920s, the Imperial Japanese Navy was the world’s third largest maritime service, behind Britain’s Royal Navy and the United States Navy.
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