I was asked a few questions about an interesting display of pilot's watches on a German Language site. These watches were made by various Swiss makers, but all of them have the black dial and durning bezel in common. They may not all be military, but some or all of them may be commercial.

Watches of this sort were sold in the U.S. commercially. Also, during WWII Seiko made an extra large model which was issued to Imperial Army and Navy pilots.

The question is, why did this style, of a black dial with turning bezel, catch on with so many makers? Was it endorsed by a pilot's organization? A Govt recommendation?

Flying-Time Site

Any insight would be appriciated. (and, "no", I only wish I spoke German).

Best regards,

Greg

I should think it was born of necessity. A black dial with white or luminescent numbers/markers provides for instant time recognition in low light periods as well as full sunlight without too much reflection or glare other than from, possibly, the crystal.

The turning bezel, as in diving watches, is a great way to keep track of elapsed time without having to remember where exactly you started your measurement of time from. That may have been especially crucial for the sensory overloaded pilot. More so if in combat.

I can imagine pilots making it known to watch manufacturers what they needed. The military would pick up on that and make specifications for such things for their pilots. The manufacturers, to appeal to the flying population, would gladly make such watches. Actually, it may have coalesced simultaneously between the three as the best type of watch for flying.

There are my thoughts...

Hello all,

it was me who asked Greg the question about these early aviation watches. Watches of this type were made by IWC, Zenith, Helvetia, Lanco, Breitling, Askania, Sita, Buren, Rochette, Mixa, among others.

Here is a group shot of some of these watches:



It is very clear to me why watches of this type would make good aviation watches; what completely amazes me is the uniformity with which several companies produced very similar watches ... almost like the American A-11 production standard in WWII.

They (almost) all have in common a railroad track minute markers, full numerals, cathedral hands, unmarked bi-directional bezel with marker, antimagnetic protection (probably up to today's ISO standard of 4,800 A/m, and not the higher 40,000 or 80,000 A/m rating of today's aviation watches).

This uniformity across a surprisingly high number of watch brands is all the more amazing as, e.g., IWC produced merely 400-odd pieces of their version of this watch type, the "Spezialuhr für Flieger" (incorrectly referred to as "Mark IX"), between 1936 and 1944.

How came it about that all these watch companies arrived at almost the same design? Why so little varaition regarding bezel, minute track, hands ... ?

Any help will be greatly appreciated!

Thank you for joining us, Martin. I'm glad your skill with English makes up for my lack of German.

We are honored to have a distinguished military watch site moderator share information with us here.

Best regards,

Greg

Here is another example of the type. The outer case back is marked "HELIOS WATCH SWISS STANLESS STEEL"

The revolving pointer is at 12 o'clock.

The balance cock code, EOP is for Harvel, Rensie.

Note solid wire lugs in the first Helios picture. Helios is one of the brand names found on WWII German issued D-H watches, but with offset seconds and no turning bezel.

Best regards,
Greg

NOTE: Our friend Liga, posted the following on the German military watch site:

German Watch Site


Hi Greg,

i read your post on the Nawcc and the comments and i would like to ad the following:

It is not known whether any prize was issued by the Institutions just like the British or French did for marine chronometers for the design of a watch with special charatheristics for military use during the 19th Century and that untill late 30'.

These prizes anyhow gave a big push and induced horological engineers to introduce and standardize advanced technology in clocks for the misurement of time and relevant determination of latitude.

At the end of 19th Century the military wrist watch was introduced after the need of the war-inclined Austrian (Prussian) for an easy portable device for the calculations in artillery.

Girard Perregaux was ordered the first wrist watches with a black dial , luminous figures and mesh guard in a wirelugged pocket silver case by Willeilm of Prussia in 1880 for the Imperial Navy.

We need to wait untill early 1910 to see more black dialled pocket and wrist watches when the British ordered from Omega, Doxa and Zenith the pocket Mark V and the Zenith w/w with 15 jewels and Dennison silver case based on the experience acquired on Marine chronometres.
I would rather say that the Mark V set the black dial design standards and the multiple orders placed to different manufacturers spreaded these standards through the smart market oriented Swiss industry.

Untill the 20' military wrist watches kept the mesh guard and did not really could hoist a turning bezel.

Then the ''Oyster case'' was made popular by Rolex in the late 20'.

The turning bezel was introduced by Philips Van Horn Weems and Charles Lindberg' (announced on the press, New York Sun , Aug 1923) after their theories and the orders they placed with Longines/Wittnauer who patented the system in the late 20' and then a simplified rimmed version was introduced by the general watch industry for simpler calculations and became popular for the watches intended for pilots.

Most of the watches pictured in the Nawcc post are dated mid 30' and on and that is when the Swiss makers had already felt the needs of the pilots and had offered in their catalogs at least a model dedicated to flyiers including several of the above features.

Sometime later all the above different options were put together at the eve of the WW2 and i wouldnt risk much in saying that German first and British then who both meanwhile endlessy researched in the time misurement were the first to issue general wrist watch' specs which we well know for sturdy military watches .

rgds

Thanks for sharing the photos and information! Those are all really nice watches.

From the perspective of a pilot, who is also interested in military timepieces, I would hesitate to call these all pilot's watches. Most pilots I know, including myself, do not normally use our wristwatches for piloting or navigating - we tend to use the clocks in the panels which are constantly checked and maintained for accuracy along with the other parts of the aircraft. Wristwatches tend to be too imprecise and too hard to read when your aircraft is bouncing around in rough air. Also, the radium in the cathedral hands that are in many of these particular watches would be prone to being knocked loose in a constantly vibrating aircraft. While A-11s, A-17s, and similar wristwatches have black dials, they also do not have cathedral hands.

In general, a black dial with white markings can be easier to read in low light or at night which make them good for military use, but while they would be useful for a quick check of time by a pilot or other aircraft crew, they would be equally useful for pretty much any other military person, or any civilian who wanted an easy to read watch or who simply wanted to have a watch of this style or color.

I think there has always been an interplay, back and forth, between the civilian and military timepiece markets especially since the same makers produce both types. Also, many people in the military end up wearing civilian watches either because they don't rate a military issue one, they lost their issue one, or they just prefer a civilian one.

In that exceptional array of black dialed watches, could you tell us which of them are marked with military issue markings, and of those, which have air force branch markings of their countries?

Hi,

it certainly interesting to read your post Jim and the pilot's point of view! Out of the many watches pictured the only one that was made after a spec (Laco (?), top centre, Spec. FL23883, Germany, WW2) the rest are made according to factory specs but they were used by pilots indeed and despite I cant read the dials and tell , Omega, Breitling and Longines of the same shape and period ( 30')were assigned by the German, Tcheck and other Airforces and properly marked with military markings on the coverback.
rgds

enzo

Thanks Enzo. Are you saying all of these have military markings that are exclusive to the air forces of these countries, or are they just regular military markings?

Martin, would you be able to post some photos of the military markings on the backs of these?

Thanks!

Regards, Jim

Jim, I'm glad we have the perspective of an actual pilot.

Going back to the 1920's and 1930's, would a pilot have the need to mark his time of take-off so as to watch his fuel consumption?

I don't think all of the watches in the picture have military markings. Although some of them might.

On page 92 of Wesolowski's Concise Guide to Military Timepieces, there is an example of a large black-dialed turning bezel wristwatch. The watch is clearly a private purchase item. But, according to Wesolowski, these were marketed to German pilots in the 1920's and 30's. (I wonder if such watches might have also been status items back then?)

As noted by Jim, a turning bezel marker can be for any number of uses.

An example of a non-pilot use for the turning bezel marker took place during my law school exams. With multiple essays and limited time, I had to divide and allocate my time for each essay. I used a turning bezel with a marker to set the time I spent on each part of the exam. This was to be sure I did not take too long on one question and then not have enough time for the rest of the test. So, in addition to pilots law students might also use turning bezel pointers to "navigate" the "turbulant air space" of their exams.

Best regards,
Greg

Hi Jim,

no, i did not say that the ones pictured above have military markings, they may but i do not read the dials so i really do not know about these in particular.
I meant that watches (Omega, Longines, Lemania, Heuer and Breitling) similar to these, same period , flat wired lugs, black dial, lum figures and turning bezel were used by Countries such Germany Tzech and marked with the markings of the Airforce of the country, none with a military spec.(that i am aware of)
The only one pictured above that I recognize had a spec is the Laco in top center.
Sorry if i wasnt clear enough.
Tnks rgds

Enzo

Hi Greg,

flwg my late post i am sure you will be happy today !
I found the earliest known, at least to me, spec for military wrist watches.

It is:


U.S.Army
specification


No. 55-1A
October 7, 1926
----------------
Superseding No. 55-1
July 26, 1928



WATCH, WRIST, SEVEN-JEVELS
----------------


and among the features it calls for a black porcelain dial with Arabic figures...

Tnks rgds

Enzo

Many thanks for the responses so far!

First of all, I should clarify that this is a picture by member "dualdo" of our German Aviation watch forum, not my own collection.

I chose this picture to illustrate my question because there are many of the 1930's bezeled watches in there - but other watches too, like the Laco, and this fact may have misled some who have responded to my original enquiry.

I am quite clear about the white numerals on black dial design, and I guess the "cathedral"-type hands are a sign of the times.

What I am interested in is the railroad-track minute markers. Was that typical for watches of the period, or were there alternative minute mark designs, like simple minute ticks?

The other thing that fascinates me - and really more so than the minute tracks - is the uniformity of the unobtrusive, unmarked, bi-directional bezel. It was apparently carried over to the German WWII aviation chronographs, while British 6B/159 and American A-11 watches of the period did not utilize a bezel. But are there any previous examples of such an unmarked, unobtrusive bezel?

BTW, I believe that these watches were indeed aviator watches. The IWC so-called "Mark IX" ("Spezialuhr für Flieger"), the very same type of watch, is well documented, and was marketed to aviators on account of the antimagnetic properties of the movement, the bezel, and the legibility. In fact, on another pilot's watches forum, helicopter pilots commented that as late as the 1960s and 1970s instrument panels were so sparsely furnished that they did rely on their wristwatches. The Longines CAF is similarly well-known to be an aviation watch, and the propeller logo of the Helvetia points in the same direction.

Issued air force markings on post-WWI German watches prior to 1935 would likely be bogus, as the Versailles Treaty prohibited a German air force, and flight training, and aircraft production, was conducted under various guises e.g. in Sweden and the Soviet Union.

In addition, I find the bezeled watches similar enough (size, lugs, overall design ...) to wonder how the similarity came about ...

This research project is actually getting off to a flying start, thanks to Greg's support. I am only just beginning to get in touch with museums and collectors to find out more about this type of watch.

Until than, all help is greatly appreciated!

A rotating bezel with a marker on it would be of some use for a pilot to keep general track of time between one event and another, but it would be too inacurate for something like navigation where you need to know seconds in addition to minutes. I think it could be of equal use to pretty much any military person who would find it useful to know a rough approximation of how much time had elapsed from one point to another. Or for a civilian to know how much time is left on their parking meter before they get a ticket, or whatever.

For a more precise measurement, a hacking feature would be of more use. Multifunction watches with built in timers and other complications, or with rotating bezels that incorporate E6-B type markings would be of more use in theory, but in practice it would be at best a backup to a real timer or E6-B calculator. An E6-B calculator is a kind of circular slide rule pilots used to have (some of us old fashioned ones still have them and know how to use them) for quickly doing navigation calculations.

I am a little surprised by the comments of those 1960s whirlybird Army pilots. Their standard panel for that kind of aircraft in those days included type A-13A clocks (and variations on that model). Those have a built in timer/chrono device. You see this type of clock for sale on Ebay all the time though they are often misidentified as being WW II vintage when in fact they are 1950s to 1990s vintages. A good friend of mine was an Army helicopter pilot in one of those in the early days of U.S. involvement in Viet Nam back in the 1960s. That was when the main helicopters being flown where those Bell models with the big plexiglass globe - they were not much different than the Korean era ones you see in the old television show, MASH. The later Hueys were much better instrumented.

Assuming a person is not piloting a fancy modern aircraft with all the bells and whistles built into its avionics, the standard old fashioned way to manage your time and fuel and do your navigating is to do a proper flight plan before you leave, including setting up your flight charts with notes on them as to times and altitudes and headings and radio frequencies and all of that sort of thing. You clip this to your kneeboard which is a kind of a clipboard that is strapped to your leg - these go back to WW I era days. Then, from start to finish of a flight you make regular entries onto your flight charts and keep track of everything there. You need to keep your eyes looking out the windows as much as possible so most pilots don't want to be fiddling with a wristwatch. A quick glance at the panel clock, which is lighted at night unlike your wristwatch (going back to many of the old WW I era planes), keeps your attention where it should be.

It may be worth keeping in mind that in the 1930s - which is the period that the bezeled aviation watches date to - cockpits had only just become covered, and instrumentation may have been more sparse than it is today. In WWI the cockpit clocks were removable pocket watches "clicked" into the instrument panel. In the early 1930s, there were still quite a number of planes with open cockpits.

But I agree that the bezel was likely used more for recording total flight time, or legs of a flight, than for precise navigation purposes.

In WW I days, there were both clocks and panel watches being used - it was more of a decision by the particular country's air service as to which style would be used in the aircraft they purchased. The British and Germans used mainly pocket watches that were held by special panel mounted holders, while the French and the Americans used mainly clocks that were mounted to the instrument panel or to the control wheel. Everyone had gone to panel mounted clocks as the main aircraft timepiece by the 1930s. In all of these cases, the main timepiece used by the pilot was not a wristwatch, though I am sure most had their own privately purchased wristwatches chosen by whatever their wallet and personal fancy allowed and that they may have used on occasion as a backup.

In case it is of use, on MWR someone posted the above image with the brand names of each watch.

Military Watch Resource

Best regards,
Greg

Hello,

Surely modern pilots would not be able to make today any use of an Air Navigational clock or watch but the books ( i.e. Whitney) are full of portable one's.

Short haul and fighter pilots didnt need to rely much on a timepiece but long haul military and commercial one's did.

The first B707 (late 50') still had a dome for Sideral aided navigation by stars observation and that since the advent of the mechanical Inertial Navigation platforms (INS) and later the INS connected with GPS.

Before that (1940) the LORAN was the sole Navigational Aid but it was imprecise.

http://www.answers.com/loran?cat=technology

Earlier than that there was the ADF/NDB*
even more imprecise.

From Page 265 to page 300 there is a 1910-1950 span of 35 pages comprehensive collection of portable timepieces for pilots and their usage which were widely used for navigational scopes.

Tnks rgds

Enzo

Enzo, which Book are you referring to precisely? Whitney's "Military Timepieces"?

Martin,

Yes, that is the Book, it covers mainly U.S. but it gives the mean....

rgds

Enzo

quote:

Surely modern pilots would not be able to make today any use of an Air Navigational clock or watch but the books ( i.e. Whitney) are full of portable one's.

The panel clock is a pretty useful instrument to modern pilots and I can not remember any aircraft I have flown in the past 30 years not having one. Every aircraft going back to at least the 1940s has the same six primary flight instruments that a pilot uses constantly. These are the artificial horizon, the altimeter, the airspeed indicator, the directional gyro, the turn and bank indicator, and the vertical speed indicator. Other instruments that are almost as important and always found even in small aircraft include the magnetic compass, clock, fuel guage, and engine rpm. Of course there are others instruments and radios that both older and modern aircraft have, plus you need your aeronautical charts, but if you have these basic instruments you can get yourself pretty much anywhere without any problems. And in a pinch you can get by with no instruments of any kind especially if you have good visibility and are familiar with the area. Pilots are trained to be able to fly like this in case of an emergency - at least I was along with every other pilot I know. I was also trained to be able to land my plane in case of engine failure as well by having my instructor shut the engine off. That was interesting.