The modern scuba diving watch was introduced to the public in 1954 at the annual watch
trade show in Basel, Switzerland; Rolex debuted the Submariner, and the Blancpain Fifty
Fathoms. Both were different from past diving watches because of their superior water
resistance and their rotating timing bezels. Both would also become icons.
Each watch had its advantages. The Rolex Submariner had the superior (and patented)
screw-down crown, and was advertised as being “waterproof” to a depth of 200 meters. It
was small, however, at only 36 mm in diameter, and the design was not yet fully
developed. Derived from Rolex's even smaller Turn-O-Matic model, the Submariner would be
redesigned yearly until a major overhaul in 1960.
The Blancpain Fifty Fathoms, on the other hand, was very large for its day at 41 mm in
diameter. It had an innovative acrylic bezel insert inlaid with luminous numbers, and
advertised "fifty fathoms" water resistance, which equated to 91 meters. The name was
chosen because it was catchy; the watch had actually been tested to 150 meters. Unlike
the Rolex, the Fifty Fathoms was a fully realized design, remaining in production
essentially unchanged for almost twenty years.
Two years later, in 1956, both watches got a publicity boost by Jacques Cousteau's
popular documentary film The Silent World, which featured his divers wearing both the
Fifty Fathoms and the Submariner. Soon afterward, recreational scuba diving became an
international fad. For the first time, civilians had a real reason to purchase a diving
watch.
Prior to this time, the world of diving had belonged to the soldier and professional
hard-hat salvage diver. In WWII, combat divers proved their value. In 1941 Italian
commandos sank two British battleships in the harbor at Alexandria, Egypt. They wore
large diving watches assembled by the now famous Italian company, Officine Panerai.
German Army "Kampfswimmers" wore large water-resistant Rolexes with pocket watch
movements.
WWII U.S. frogmen wore relatively tiny dive watches made by Hamilton. These 32 mm
American diving watches were essentially general issue watches that had been awkwardly
fitted with large screw-down covers that protected the crown from the water. Their
unique shape led to their nickname: "canteen watches." Around 1949, a slightly modified
watch was made by Elgin, which remained in service through the mid-1950s.
By 1957, the U.S. Navy was ready to replace the antiquated canteen watch with a new,
modern design. Navy designers went to work and came up with drawings for a large
diameter dive watch with a rotating bezel and an acrylic, luminous bezel insert. The
watch was large at 1 5/8 inches (41.3 mm) in diameter, and the design owed a great deal
to the Fifty Fathoms. The U.S. Navy's watch, however, was to be much more solidly built
than the Fifty Fathoms, thicker and with a larger crown. The Navy watch also differed in
its use of a narrow _ inch (16 mm) watchstrap, instead of the Fifty Fathoms's wide 20 mm
strap, no doubt so the new watch could use the existing stock of Navy straps. The watch
also differed from the Rolex and Blancpain in that it was to have a hand-wind mechanical
movement, rather than a more modern self-winding movement. The watch design was given
specification MIL-SHIPS-W-2181.
At this time American military procurement rules were very protectionist, greatly
favoring American watch companies. The Navy entered into a development agreement with
the Bulova Watch Company to manufacture the new design. Bulova already had a lucrative
contract with the Air Force to manufacture navigation wristwatches. The company also had
a direct pipeline to the procurement offices as a result of having hired retired General
Omar Bradley in 1954. As the CEO of the Bulova Research and Development Laboratories,
Bradley undoubtedly had a hand in the development of the Navy's new dive watch.
Bulova created a new 17 jewel hand-wind watch movement just for the project, the 10
BPCHN. The movement was an oddity. The base movement was the old U.S.-made workhouse
hand-winding 10 BNCH, which had powered tens of thousands of Bulovas over the past
twenty years. What made the new movement different was that, despite being a
hand-winder, it had a slipping mainspring like an automatic movement. This meant that
the crown of the new movement would continue to turn even after the mainspring was fully
wound. The only logical explanation for this was that the movement was a prototype for
an eventual automatic movement, perhaps because Bulova believed that the Navy would
someday require it. Bulova made around 200 of the movements, but only a handful were
ever cased up into complete watches.
For the stainless-steel watch cases, Bulova turned to its long-time partner, the Star
Watch Case Company of Ludington, Michigan. Star had previously made very high-quality
cases for Bulova's Air Force navigation watches, the A-17A and the 3818-A. For the
Navy's diving watch, Bulova made a prototype stainless steel case with a unique two-part
case back, utilizing a separate screw-ring. This two-piece case was also similar to the
Blancpain Fifty Fathoms, and was intended to avoid having the case back rotate against
the rubber gasket when tightening, which could deform the gasket and cause leaks. The
cases show obvious signs of hand-work, indicating that they were never put into regular
production.
By the beginning of 1958, the new Bulova diving watch was ready to be sent to the Navy
Experimental Diving Unit in Washington, D.C., which was responsible for the testing of
all prototype watches. The Navy thought the watch would be ideal for deep-sea salvage
diving. The evaluators, who included the diving pioneer, Capt. Willard "Bill" F. Searle,
Jr., evaluated three of the new Bulova watches, including testing the watch to a depth
of 392 feet. Unfortunately, the watches failed the waterproof testing. Undaunted,
Bulova made some improvements in response to suggestions from the evaluators, and
eventually sent three more watches to the Navy in May, 1958. These tests went better,
with two of the watches passing, but one indicating the possibility of slight water
leakage. However, upon inspection, the third watch also had passed the test.
Several months after the Bulova dive watch was tested for the second time, the Navy also
tested the Rolex Submariner (still the early version without crown guards), the
Blancpain Fifty Fathoms, and a "very cheap" Enicar. The purpose of the testing was to
compare the watches with the "still-under-development standard USN watch (Bulova)."
Interestingly, the Rolex proved to be insufficiently waterproof, "bearing out reports
from the field." Although the report doesn't mention whether the Fifty Fathoms passed
the waterproof testing, it does recommend that the design of the still-under-development
USN watch be modified to incorporate a Fifty Fathoms-style second hand, instead of the
one used on the Bulova, which was thought to be too narrow and hard to see underwater.
The evaluators also recommended that the narrow 16 mm width between the lugs be increased
to match the 20 mm width of the Swiss watches.
What happened next to the Bulova project is a mystery. In 1959 the MIL-W-3181
specification was cancelled and superseded by MIL-W-22176, incorporating the
recommendations of the Navy evaluators. By this time, Omar Bradley had been elevated to
CEO of the entire Bulova Company, and a great deal of the company's resources were
devoted to the development of the Accutron, the world's first electronic wristwatch.
What is known for certain is that Bulova gave up on the project, and made no attempt to
modify their design to match the new specification. At least one of the remaining
prototypes was issued to the Navy's UDT 21 frogman team. There is also evidence that a
number of the uncased movements and dials for the watch were later sold off. Only two
examples of this prototype "Bulova UDT" Navy dive watch are known to exist, one of which
is in the possession of the Corvus Watch Company collection. The other is owned by an
American military watch collector.
In 1961, the Navy breathed life back into the dormant project by issuing a third version
of the dive watch spec, MIL-W-22176A. The new spec called for a watch nearly identical
in appearance to the Bulova prototype, but which was now to be a fully modern watch with
a 20 mm strap, an automatic movement, and a Plexiglas crystal (the Bulova's had been made
of domed tempered glass.)
Although Bulova had lost interest in the contract, the owner of a small watch
distribution company in New York, Allen V. Tornek, pursued it. Tornek was the sole
distributor for Blancpain in the USA. By now, the Fifty Fathoms was selling well, partly
due to actor Lloyd Bridges, star of the popular television show Sea Hunt, posing with a
Fifty Fathoms on the cover of Skin Diver Magazine in February 1962. The similarity of
the Navy spec to his Fifty Fathoms was obvious, and Tornek arranged for Blancpain to
build the dive watch in Switzerland for the U.S. Navy. There were considerable
difficulties in satisfying the Navy's requirement that the watch contain a certain
proportion of US-made components. Tornek had to purchase jewels for the movement from a
US supplier in Missouri, and show copies of the invoices to the Navy. Once purchased,
the low-quality domestic jewels were thrown away, and the Swiss jewels retained.
The watch Tornek and Blancpain came up with differed from the Fifty Fathoms, primarily
in the case design, more closely resembling the Bulova prototype. It had a much thicker
case and bezel than the Fifty Fathoms, with shorter lugs. The new watch was dubbed the
Tornek-Rayville TR-900 (after Tornek's company and Blancpain's corporate owner, Rayville
SA.) About one thousand TR-900 dive watches were delivered under two contracts to the
Navy during 1964 and 1965. The watches were issued to Navy UDT frogman teams and Marine
Recon units, and many saw service throughout the Vietnam war.
Blancpain used a few leftover cases to make a civilian model of the watch, branded as
the Fifty Fathoms Milspec 1, but otherwise Blancpain never again used this case design.
(Two other unrelated versions of the Fifty Fathoms were also called the "Milspec.")
There are probably less than two hundred TR-900s remaining, and only one known example
of the civilian model. Original TR-900s in fine condition sell for in excess of $10,000
on the rare occasions when they can be found.
Acknowledgments: Special thanks to James Delgado and Brian Dumas.
TAKE ME TO THE WATCHES
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