We are often here to tell you how closely the world of timepieces is connected with many industries.

From the world wars around the globe to the 1960s in race cars, watches have always proved to be indispensable wrist instruments for the wearer. Actually, it is pretty natural given how important Time is for human beings.

And it is mainly to the military world that we owe the real transition, as far as the male audience is concerned, of the pocket watch to the wrist watch for a utility factor.

Indeed, pocket watches, although they marked an extremely fascinating era in the world of watchmaking by enabling the development of the major complications known to us today, by the beginning of the 20th century soon proved unsuitable for one simple reason: functionality.

Soldiers in fact, busy at the turn of the century fighting in World War I, needed to be able to tell the time quickly and conveniently without having to take their watches out of their pockets.

Indeed, this was one of the main reasons why the development of wristwatches began even though, initially, they were seen as a real tool and not as a gentleman’s accessory as a pocket watch might have been.

The beginning of the 20th century was also that period in which we witnessed the development of aviation, which experienced its own golden age in the 1920s and 1930s, also abetted by the fact of the development of functional and decisive military airplanes for what would soon be World War II.

Hand in hand with the birth of military aviation also arose the need to equip pilots, on board warplanes, with a fundamental tool for the time: the watch.

Indeed, during this period there were many companies that, commissioned by the defense ministries of various nations, began the production of military watches that are so beloved and sought after by collectors today.

Within this typology of timepieces, beloved by me for the rich history they contain within them, I believe that some rather unique watches produced for Germany on the heels of World War II deserve special attention.

I am talking about the Beobachtunguhren, more commonly known by the name B-Uhren (plural) or B-Uhr (singular), i.e., large “observation” wristwatches created for the German Air Force.

The history of B-Uhren  

The history of these watches, which have become true collector’s items nowadays, has its roots in the era of Nazi Germany.

In the period immediately preceding World War II, the Reichsluftfahrtministerium, or Reich Aviation Ministry, in addition to aircraft development, set out to find the perfect watch that could be worn by the navigators on the bombers along with the pilots.

Having mentioned navigators, it should be pointed out that, contrary to popular belief, B-Uhren watches are improperly referred to as pilot’s watches. However, as we have said they were intended for navigators and technicians on board warplanes who used such instruments to plot routes and targets to be hit.

At the same time, however, pilots were also in possession of a watch aboard warplanes, but it was a distinctly different topology than the B-Uhren and, more importantly, with different construction and technical characteristics, which we will analyze later in the article.

Returning instead the history of the creation of the B-Uhren, the Reichsluftfahrtministerium already mentioned in the previous paragraphs, presented in 1935 the first conceptual designs within which were the features that such clocks were to have.

The companies that were shortly thereafter commissioned to produce such watches were strictly German with the exception of only one. In fact, in addition to the famous German watchmakers Lange, Lanco, Stowa and Wempe, IWC was also selected which turned out to be the only Swiss company to produce the B-Uhren watches.

As they were produced and after passing rigorous tests, the watches were assigned to technicians of the Luftwaffe, i.e., the German Air Force, which were worn by them above their suits so that they could always be read immediately, aboard military bombers.

Since the watches were the property of the Luftwaffe, and thus of the German state, pilots had to return the watches at the end of their service. At the production level, an estimated 1,000 were made by each of the five companies selected by the Reich Ministry of Aviation.

The Characteristics of B-Uhren Watches

As per the standard imparted by the Reich Ministry of Aviation, such watches had to possess very specific characteristics. Starting with the large case, this had to comply with the measurement of 55 mm in diameter in order to accommodate a large dial so as to ensure easy reading.

The material for making the cases was nickel-plated brass, and on the examples produced by IWC, iron was also used to coat the interior as it turned out to be a material that could protect the watch movement from the frequent magnetic fields generated inside aircraft cabins.

The dial of the individual watches, on the other hand, had to be black in color and devoid of any kind of markings so that it could be clearly and easily read. To facilitate this, only the indication of hours, minutes and seconds were to be present since, even a simple date display could be superfluous and distract from reading the time.

The spheres, indexes, and seconds scale also had to be luminescent in order to make them easier to read even at night through the use of radium, which is a highly radioactive material that acted as a luminescent paste for the dial elements at the time.

The latter, in terms of configuration, was made in two types named Type A, which was produced from about 1940 until 1941, and Type B, which was produced from 1941 until the end of World War II.

In terms of layout, the Type A dial had a traditional peripheral minute track interspersed with Arabic numerals indicating the hours; the Type B, on the other hand, had the hour scale in the center and the minute scale on the outside.

When it comes to the beating heart of such watches, the hand-wound movements of pocket watches were taken (the second element that justified the use of large cases because of the size of the gauges of such watches), as, at the time, they turned out to be extremely more accurate with a deviation of +/- 3 sec per day, compared to the gauges mounted on wristwatches.

The indispensable feature of such movements had to be the detent so that the technician wearing it could synchronize his watch, before flight and missions, with the official Hamburg time. Each of the manufacturers of this type of watch chose to use a movement that was different from the other but always came from a pocket watch.

In fact, within the Lange beats the 48.1 caliber, in the Lanco the Durowe D5 caliber, in the Stowa the Unitas 2812 caliber, in the Wempe the Thommen 31 caliber, and finally in the IWCs the 52 SC caliber.

To protect the movements there had to be a case back, also made of nickel-plated brass, bearing the following inscriptions on the inside: Beobachtungsuhr (observation watch); Baurat (movement manufacturer); Gerät-Nr (instrument number); Werk-Nr (movement number); Anforderz (contract) followed by the initials that identified the entire type of these watches, namely FL 23883, also present on the outside right side of the case (FL stands for “aviator”).

Also on the case, at 3 o’clock, however, was to be the large crown so that it could be handled with the gloves that bomber engineers and navigators used to wear.

Securing the watch to the soldiers’ forearms was an extra long leather strap so that it could be worn comfortably over the overalls that were worn aboard the bombers.

Final thoughts

As is often the case, behind what, on the surface, may appear to be an “ordinary” watch, we find contained within it a great story.

As much as wars are never a pleasant memory, military watches intended for World War II soldiers always have to tell of multiple heroic feats performed by brave men who sacrificed for their country.

Indeed, when one has these timepieces in one’s hands, I find it extremely easy to lose oneself in admiring them as watches in themselves but, more importantly, to try to evoke what were heroic exploits amidst the skies aboard bombers in the case of the B-Uhren watches.

In fact, with one of these watches on your wrist, I guarantee that for a moment you will feel as if you are taking an immediate plunge into the past within a historical era that has always been told, to most of us young collectors, by our grandparents who experienced it firsthand.

I will conclude by saying that I find it really absurd, but, at the same time extremely fascinating, to fall in love with an object that in the time it was created, one would never have expected that, one day, it would become an extremely rare collector’s item, so loved and sought after.