I recently acquired a Longines ref. 4776 with an intriguing engraving on its case-back. The engraving consists of a capital letter preceding a five-digit number, and what appear to be initials below the number. Knowing that the watch was invoiced to Canada in 1941, a bit of research suggested that the capital letter and number are a Canadian Regimental number, which were introduced for the Canadian Active Service Force in 1940 (Source: Law).

Thanks to a great book by Clive M. Law entitled "Regimental Numbers of the Canadian Army, 1936 - 1960", I have been able to decode the letter/number further. The "H" that precedes the number, corresponds to Military District 10, which was essentially Western Ontario, Manitoba, and what is now called Nunavut. The letter indicates the region in which a person was recruited.

Within Military Districts, Units were given blocks of numbers that they could assign to new recruits. According to Law's book, "H 50635" falls within the block of numbers given to the "3rd Field Ambulance, RCAMC". RCAMC stands for Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps.

After spending a brief period of time with another great book by Gerald W. L. Nicholson entitled "Seventy Years of Service: A History of the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps", it is evident that RCAMC Field Ambulances played a critical role in transporting injured troops to places such as General Hospitals and Advanced Dressing Stations during the Second World War. Though the 3rd Field Ambulance Unit was not mentioned within the context of the Second World War, it was mentioned as being "the last Canadian medical unit to be sent to Korea" in 1954. I hope to explore this further.

Here is the watch.

 

Thanks for sharing, great info!

 

Great watch and detective work!

 

Great research in bringing to life just part of the history some watches have.

 

This is great - story and watch. Were watches given to Canada also invoiced to Longines-Wittnauer?

 

@JasonF @Radiumpassion @JohnLy and @BlueHands Thanks for your feedback.

Yes, Longines watches that were bound for the Canadian market were invoiced to Longines-Wittnauer (at least during this time period). When I was in Saint-Imier, I was lucky to see a page from Longines' registers that indicated an original invoice to Wittnauer with an additional mention of "Stock Canada". I do not know if all watches bound for Canada were recorded this way in Longines' archive.

 

That`s interesting, thanks a lot for your info. Some time ago I have been beginning to write down Longines`agents and the associated countries. I will include this in my notes.

 

Very nice watch and story! Thanks for sharing

 

My pleasure!

 

Thanks for the write-up! It's an amazing piece of history(as a as a Seoulite myself, intrigued to know it could perhaps have passed through the area long ago; though more likely not, given the date).
Do you know what the 139 on the underside of the lugs stands for? Case maker?

 

139 are the last digits of the case register serial number. Longines mark them like that until the mid-40s, but that's what the more familiar here will say. I've always loved this way of marking... I've only seen anything like it on a late 30s Ebel I had a while back.

Kudos to the OP for a lovely watch in its own right, and thanks for the story!

 

@Mephisto and @Donko1100 Thanks for your responses!

Firstly, I do not know who made Longines' early waterproof cases. Secondly, the number on the underside of the lug is an individual case number within an order, as far as I know. The order number is the five-digit number on the outside of the case-back. On screw-back cases, the individual case number was stamped on both the case-back and the underside of a lug. I have seen a similar practice on the cases of a few other watch brands. Here is a Tissot that I own.

 

Very interesting, you should post this on MWR, I’m
Sure the membership will be very interested and there are a few Canadians there and’others with some interest and knowledge about the various watches the Canadian military used.

 

Thanks for the feedback and suggestion. I will try to do that in the near future.