I distinctly remember waking up to this headline a few months ago: 'COVID-19 has now killed more people in the USA than World War I'. Early in 2020, people around the world were asked to stay indoors for months on end. Cut to present day, and there is still no end in sight.

Rare sight of empty streets in the city of Mumbai, India

With all this time on my hands, I took to studying the history of World Wars and the men that fought them during my quarantine. Often, this led to reading about watches that were influential in both World Wars. Wars were fought on land, in the skies and on the water. And military-grade watches were an important technological marvel of the time to help soldiers in myriad ways. 

The Blancpain Fifty Fathoms could make up to 300 feet, the maximum that deep sea divers could reach based on limitations of the equipment available at the time. The story of the creation of this watch is quite remarkable. Great technology is often born under challenging circumstances to achieve extraordinary feats.

 

Captain Robert Maloubier and Lieutenant Claude Riffaud were founders of the French Combat Diving School that trained its men to carry out intelligence missions and provide information on possible sabotage of their ships. The former was also a member of Winston Churchill's Special Operation Executive in World War II, a secret section of the army whose role was to spread chaos in enemy-occupied Europe.

 

Captain Maloubier seen wearing the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms on one of his deep sea dives

 

Instruments that accurately measured time spent for underwater maneuvers, including calculating limited oxygen supply, were of prime importance to deep sea divers. After testing many such watches, Captain Maloubier and Lt. Riffaud finally put together a plan to build a watch for military dives with a large case and a clear, contrasting display. It was waterproof and had a rotating bezel to calculate elapsed time following a diver's descent. They took their idea to Blancpain and this resulted in the Fifty Fathoms watch. Apart from being used by the French deep sea diving team, Blancpain also created Military Spec watches for West German Navy Combat divers as well as the US Navy.

 

President John F. Kennedy greeting a group of Navy Seal divers seen wearing the Fifty Fathoms

 

Putting the size of the achievement into perspective, Blancpain created this deep sea dive watch five years before the much-celebrated Rolex Submariner. And therefore, I felt it was fair to feature this military watch that was an essential survival tool for its wearers during the war.

 

"If the sky's the limit, then go there," is exactly what the next timepiece did. While Air Force pilots spend day after day, year after year, in preparation to dominate the skies, one brand captured the pilot's wristwatch market - Breitling

 

 

The company under the guidance of Leon Breitling made the world's first wrist chronograph with a push piece separate from the crown along with dashboard instruments for cockpits. The Royal Air Force commissioned the brand to make these for them during World War II, a feather in Breitling's cap.

 

Early ads featuring the Breitling Navitimer Chronograph

 

The model I would like to focus on is the Breitling Navitimer. Its standout feature is the slide rule external bezel that was used to make complex calculations while flying, with no other tool that could match it at that time. The slide rule calculated fuel consumption and rate of ascent. The Breitling Navitimer has been a pioneering watch. What started as an air force pilot's watch has evolved into an automatic chronograph over the years with an in-house movement.

 

 

Breitling fought the quartz crisis of the 1970s very aggressively, releasing its own range of digital watches, all the while also building certified mechanical chronometers. Apart from serving air force pilots from Great Britain and the USA, Breitling's flair and flamboyant style found its way into celebrity actor and pilot John Travolta's Boeing dashboard too.

 

Every watch collector’s first timepiece is special. The first watch I invested in was the Breitling Navitimer in 2012, with my earnings from my stints in the pool. Each time it’s on my wrist, I feel like I’m wearing a slice of history. I hope and pray that we never need to use these watches again in the arena of war, for which they were originally designed. In a peaceful world, deep sea diving watches are used by exploration divers and not the Navy; pilot watches are used by commercial pilots and not the Air Force.

Let's keep it that way.