IWC Schaffhausen

The first well known military IWC wrist watch was the IWC W.W.W., built for the Ministry of Defence (MoD) of Great Britain. During World War II , the MoD invited Swiss watch makers to design and deliver wrist watches for their Ground Forces. Twelve brands were selected by MoD and each of these brands built a substantial number of watches. In alphabetical order the brands were : Büren, Cyma, Eterna, Grana, Jaeger LeCoultre, IWC, Lemania, Longines, Omega, Record , Timor and Vertex. Many of these brands do not exist anymore. IWC made 6000 of these W.W.W. watches, but suprisingly , none of them was used in combat, as WW II ended at the time when delivery was completed : May, 1945. However, data exist that the U.K. used W.W.W. watches during the Gulf War and the Falklands War.
Thomas Koenig, already experienced in investigating British war files for his IWC Mk 11 research, and I travelled twice to the U.K., taking awfully early flights from Düsseldorf to London. There we investigated files and books about the topic. Arriving in London, all had been prepared and arranged by library personnel of the National Army Museum and the Imperial War Museum. After that and 2 years more of research Thomas and I wrote the article : "On His Majesty's Service. Thomas Koenig and Adrian van der Meijden look at the Watch Wrist Waterproof (W.W.W.)of the British Army and its History".It should be noted that Thomas did 90 % of the work, owing already a treasure of information on the topic. The article, because of it length, has been published in 3 parts in Horological Journal, the official journal of the British Horological Institute (BHI) and in Klassik Uhren in Germany. As there is not longer an issue of copyright, providing that our moderator approves that this material is not exclusively on IWC, we would like to post the article on our Forum in 3 parts.
The funny thing is that several of these important military wrist watches still can be bought for a few hundred dollars, while others (IWC, Grana) will cost more than tenfold. Also peculiar is that a country like the UK, exploiting military museums all over the country, has not one W.W.W watch in its collection! This is caused by the original Radium dials on the W.W.W.'s. After WW II the storage of many of these watches in one room was considered dangerous because of high levels of radioactivity. As a result thousands of watches were destroyed.
The total of 12 watches is called by collectors : "the dirty dozen" and it is not clear where this "dirty" is originating from. The authors hope that you, after having read the 3 parts , would be inclined to stop call the IWC W.W.W. a " Mark X", as this is a completely wrong name, still more frequently used than its correct name: W.W.W....
Kind regards,
Thomas Koenig,
Adrian v d Meijden,
(alwaysiwc).

thank you Adrian for continuing to inform us about the historical pieces IWC made.

tonny.berteloot@pandora.be

Tonny B Wrote:thank you Adrian for continuing to inform us about the historical pieces IWC made.

+1!!!

Best regards,
Jim

"We are the other people, we are the other people...you're the other people too!"
Frank Zappa

alwaysiwc Wrote:...The total of 12 watches is called by collectors : "the dirty dozen" and it is not clear where this "dirty" is originating from.

Thanks for your informative post. I could be wrong but I think the 'dirty' simply comes from the famous American MGM studios movie set in WWII made in 1967 called 'The Dirty Dozen'. And since these watches are also related to the same period... the similar nick-name has just stuck.

Regards,
Thang

iwcforummer@outlook.com

Last edited: 21 April, 2013 - 08:55

I always enjoy reading and re-reading this excellent article of the W.W.W. watches.

Andrew
andrew.thomas1@mac.com

Hi Thomas and Arian.
"The total of 12 watches is called by collectors : "the dirty dozen" and it is not clear where this "dirty" is originating from."

I venture to speculate that the designation "dirty dozen" may be connected with the 1967 fictional war movie The Dirty Dozen, starring Lee Marvin, among others.The Dirty Dozen the movie
Plot summary: US army Major John Reisman (Lee Marvin) volunteers for a near suicide mission. His squad will consist of twelve of the most heavily sentenced GI convicts, many whose sentence is death.
Similarly, there were 12 W.W.W. brands.

It is always good to see the IWC W.W.W. in the limelight, and I totally agree with your effort to stop collectors calling her "Mark X".
May I suggest including the Spezialuhr für Flieger (Special Watch for Pilots), incorrectly called Mark IX, or Mark 9, by many?

clepsydra
ad fontes...

Last edited: 28 April, 2012 - 22:32

alwaysiwc Wrote:The first well known military IWC wrist watch was the IWC W.W.W., built for the Ministry of Defence (MoD) of Great Britain. During World War II , the MoD invited Swiss watch makers to design and deliver wrist watches for their Ground Forces. Twelve brands were selected by MoD and each of these brands built a substantial number of watches. In alphabetical order the brands were : Büren, Cyma, Eterna, Grana, Jaeger LeCoultre, IWC, Lemania, Longines, Omega, Record , Timor and Vertex. Many of these brands do not exist anymore. IWC made 6000 of these W.W.W. watches, but suprisingly , none of them was used in combat, as WW II ended at the time when delivery was completed : May, 1945. However, data exist that the U.K. used W.W.W. watches during the Gulf War and the Falklands War.
Thomas Koenig, already experienced in investigating British war files for his IWC Mk 11 research, and I travelled twice to the U.K., taking awfully early flights from Düsseldorf to London. There we investigated files and books about the topic. Arriving in London, all had been prepared and arranged by library personnel of the National Army Museum and the Imperial War Museum. After that and 2 years more of research Thomas and I wrote the article : "On His Majesty's Service. Thomas Koenig and Adrian van der Meijden look at the Watch Wrist Waterproof (W.W.W.)of the British Army and its History".It should be noted that Thomas did 90 % of the work, owing already a treasure of information on the topic. The article, because of it length, has been published in 3 parts in Horological Journal, the official journal of the British Horological Institute (BHI) and in Klassik Uhren in Germany. As there is not longer an issue of copyright, providing that our moderator approves that this material is not exclusively on IWC, we would like to post the article on our Forum in 3 parts.
The funny thing is that several of these important military wrist watches still can be bought for a few hundred dollars, while others (IWC, Grana) will cost more than tenfold. Also peculiar is that a country like the UK, exploiting military museums all over the country, has not one W.W.W watch in its collection! This is caused by the original Radium dials on the W.W.W.'s. After WW II the storage of many of these watches in one room was considered dangerous because of high levels of radioactivity. As a result thousands of watches were destroyed.
The total of 12 watches is called by collectors : "the dirty dozen" and it is not clear where this "dirty" is originating from. The authors hope that you, after having read the 3 parts , would be inclined to stop call the IWC W.W.W. a " Mark X", as this is a completely wrong name, still more frequently used than its correct name: W.W.W....
Kind regards,
Thomas Koenig,
Adrian v d Meijden,
(alwaysiwc).

Hi Antonio,
Yes, Mk IX is also a very wrong name for a not military watch, produced by IWC.
If one studies the war history of Great Britain the word "Mark" is encountered frequently for military subjects like weapons, vehicles, watches etc. and also for civilian subjects such as the vintage Jaguar cars were called "Mark...". Obviously the name "Mark" was not a patented or protected name. Also IWC used the name Mark for their pilot watches, but not for the early "Spezialuhr für Flieger", not for the W.W.W. but starting with the Mark 11, for which the original name was given by RAF to the IWC cal. 89 Navigation Watch. Maybe not all IWC collectors know that Mk 11 was not only restricted to the IWC cal 89 watch but also to the Jaeger LeCoultre Navigation Watch, issued during the same era. IWC took over the name Mk 11 and uses this until now.
Thereafter, IWC used the name "Mark" for its civilian pilot watches : Mark XII, XV and XVI.
Kind regards,
Adrian.

thomasa8 Wrote:I always enjoy reading and re-reading this excellent article of the W.W.W. watches.

Me too. This article is the standard reference about the w.w.w.s.
Thanks to the authors for their studies and publishing the results.

Hajo
Fair Winds and Following Seas

Last edited: 9 January, 2013 - 09:24