Eaglemoss Military Watches Collection.

Nice little story to go with this issue's watch which is based on the Gallet Commander, an expensive and unusual watch for the period.

Lieutenant James Richard Hoel and his fellow Aircrew from 322nd Bombardment group arrived in Britain and undertook low-level flight training to avoid German Radar, In May 1943 went on a mission targeting U-boat pens and a power station in the Netherlands, While they successfully managed to drop their bombs and all the aircraft returned safely, the bombs failed to detonate as they had been dropped with too long a timed fuse, and the Germans were able to defuse them.
Determined to destroy the high priority target a second sortie was planned. This time there were difficulties and all of the 11 aircraft were lost.
Lieutenant Hoel's plane was shot down and two of the five crew were killed in the crash, The three survivors were captured and sent to Stalag Luft III, which was made famous by the 1963 film "The Great Escape"
Sixty years later Hoel received a call from England asking if he would like his watch back, it had been lost in the crash and had been recovered after the plane was excavated. His name and address had been engraved on the back of the case.



Case
Polished 29.8mm case, 32.3mm with crown, 8mm deep, 35.8mm Lug to Lug, 14mm lug width.

Interior diameter 27.2mm, 5.4mm deep, 5mm crown, 27mm flat glass,

Dial

White dial with a black telemetric scale at the outside edge, inside this a seconds scale marked in 5ths of a second with numerals at 5-second intervals. Hours indicated with large numbers 1 to 12

Inner Tachymetric scale in red fills the centre of the dial

An unusual Blue hour and minute hands, in a leaf style with white infill, and a slim blue seconds hand.

Strap

Black 14mm Nylon strap, polished buckle, approx. fitting 170/215mm