The surprise-it's U.S! Ah, the Swiss, so neutral! I've had perhaps 15 of the German ones but this is the first U.S. one I've found. This is odder still because I found them all in the U.S..
-Cort

A nice find, Cort. Thanks for posting it. Watches like this come up from time to time. They have various configurations, but all are Swiss and have the same number pre-fix code; a code which is not noted in the 1945 vintage Army watch code list.

A few watches like yours have been noted with D...H marks in addition to U.S. Army markings. Speculation is that the U.S. captured and then re-issued DH watches, which may be true but I'm not so sure of this.

From what I have seen and from what I have not seen, my best guess is that they are post-WWII vintage. Most likely an early Korean war issue.

Best regards,

Greg

Greg, Thank you for the input. I don't know much about these but, perhaps, enough to know this is an odd one. My new goal is to find a duel marked Germany/U.S. one like you described. And these were used in the Korean war?; man, what a mess!
-Cort

Anything is possible, but I am not yet convinced that these are what they appear to be. There is so much "recent enhancement" of otherwise low cost watches these days by adding military markings that I am suspicious of ones that are not well documented.

As Jim notes, it's wise to be careful about military watches, esp. in the case of DH types.

On the other hand, I have noted a number of examples of these Swiss/US Army watches over the years. There are consistent similarities which cause me to think these watches are legit. Such as, consistent use of the pre-fix "OH" on these Swiss made, U.S.Army marked watches and never any of the more common Army codes of the era. Enough examples have surfaced to cause some collectors to reach the conclusion that "OH" was the U.S. Army code for Swiss made wristwatches in Army service.

Regarding the DH marked Swiss watches with U.S. Army OH marks, on page 462 of his book, Konrad Knirim has images of examples of these watchs. Some of them in well known military watch collections.

How is it that the U.S. Army was using DH watches?We start with the knowledge that stocks of unused DH watches existed as surplus following WWII. Some of them were sold on the commercial watch market. It appears possible that some DH watches were sold to the U.S. Army in Europe, mixed in with batches of commercial Swiss watches. Another theory is that these watches were issued out of captured German military stores.

The reason I tend to think the watches were obtained/issued around the time of the Korean war is that the US Army was known to be short of some times of equipment at that time. This may seem strange, but following WWII, the U.S. military sold off and even destroyed huge stockpiles of unused equipment because of down-sizing. As war in Korea came up, the U.S. was found to be short of some items, thus my theory that it turned to Swiss watches to fill a short term need. That's my theory and I'll stick to it until some hard evidence shows up!

Best regards,

Greg