Please, help me to translate and transliterate these 3 charachters.

[airborne3]

Please, help me to translate and transliterate these 3 characters.

 

These 3 characters are stamped on a time measuring device that was supposedly used by the Chinese Air Force.
The time frame - late 1940s-early 1950s.

I was able to find only transliteration of the middle character (空, Kōng) which Google translates as 'air'.

Please, try to translate and transliterate these 3 characters as accurately as possible, and also, if you would have any insight as to where such words might be used (People's Liberation Army Air Force, etc.), you are more than welcomed to share - I tried to search Wikipedia and other sources but I do not know Chinese or other Asian characters (I assume that in Korean 'air' would look similar),
and visually I cannot match any characters from the Wikipedia because they look different, and I do not know how they are formed and what forms they might take.

Maybe searching the net by a native speaker, using these 3 characters, might produce result showing other items similar to the watch that I have.

 

Thank you all in advance.
 

[大块头]

I'm not certain, but appears to be stylized or damaged rendering of 航空兵, or "air force". The time period you mention places it during the Chinese Civil War. I am not familiar enough with military history to tell you what side in that war would have used this equipment.

[Pandarow]

The second word is 空，and the third is 兵，but the first one is not that sure. Generally agree with @大块头，it should be 航空兵。

[roddy]

Can we have a look at the time? Would be interesting. 

[Jim]

Could the first character be 佐 as in the military rank? Though tried searching for the three character combination using that but nothing.

[airborne3]

Thank you all for answering. It actually turned out that the watch was sold to Japan in 1933, and used by military there.
The characters most likely engraved and stamped in Switzerland based on a drawing supplied by the Japanese sales agent.
The numbering on the watch is stamped in Arabic numerals.

 

Here is the picture of part of the later marking, on a similar timepiece, where the watch was purchased as a movement only and cased by the same Japanese sales agent.
I use this picture as an illustration only. Here, the watch is numbered using Japanese character set punches.

 

The initial confusion probably arises from the fact that the seller had dated the watch as being manufactured in 1948 (based on incorrect serial numbers list), and
wrote a whole story about it being Chinese. In reality, the watch appears to be a trophy watch brought to USA by an American soldier after the end of WWII, similar to the other one referenced.

 

Again, thank you all for the efforts to help me with translation and transliteration.

[陳德聰]

空 No. 2806