Anyone have a historical watch?

That is great to know

interesting topic, however most historical watches are in musea ... some not even on display ! 🙁

Certainly is an indelible sight.

This next story, really doesn't have a conclusion yet. I will begin with a book oddly enough and there is a watch at the center of the story.
It's already been several years since the discovery of this book that has been hidden away in a veteran's storage locker.

I bought an odd watch at the time that I did not know much about at the time. I had seen a similar watch almost 20 years ago and had not seen another until recently. I bought that watch, I think someone else recognized what the watch was and so I decided to contact the seller directly and asked how much he wanted to end the auction early.

When he sent me the watch, he made an odd comment in the messages. He said basically that he had a book that he got with the watch with the name of the owner of the watch. Well, that was a red flag for me. I asked how much does he want for this book fully expecting extortion level ask price for the name of the owner. And if it turned out to be someone insignificant, I would have wasted money trying to find out who was the owner. Well, it turned out US Airforce Staff Sargent Anthony C. was a really an honest and great person. He said don't worry about the cost, the book is belongs with the watch. He just needed time to find it. Anthony was going to his local VA hospital for medical treatment and he was in and out of the hospital for several months. Since at that time eBay messages didn't quickly expire, he was able to send me messages and we finally exchanged personal email addresses.

About two or three months later, he said he found the book and sent it to me.



A few hours later, I asked him, if he had ever heard of Captain Marc A Mitscher... I was really surprised his answer was no. Chuck Yeager, Jimmy Doolittle, Alan Shephard, etc. he knew the big name Airforce people, but he didn't know this old man of the navy.

I asked him how he got the book and the watch. He explained to me that the book and the watch were in a navigator's map case along with three pictures of some Japanese people that looked completely unrelated to the book and watch.

I believe some of you who have already read this story before a couple of years ago remember my investigation into Admiral Marc A Mitscher. He was of course legendary from being an early pioneer in naval aviation with a two digit aviator serial number. One of the team members that crossed the Atlantic Ocean ten years before Charles Lindberg. They were the first to cross the Atlantic. Charles did it non-stop solo 10 years later.

He was also the Captain of the USS Hornet CV-8 that was part of the Jimmy Doolittle Tokyo Raiders that was not that long ago made into the movie "Pearl Harbor".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Mitscher

We'll continue with this story later.

I can't say I remember too much about the movie. Maybe you can let me slide on a bad choice there 😀

If you have ever been in the US Navy, then you know what this book is. The Bluejackets Manual is a standard operating procedures manual that is distributed to all Navy personnel. It contains details of what are the proper terms for the rigging of a ship, standard communications signals, details of how to tie knots, glossary of naval terms, etc. The book is revised annual with some exceptions where the same book was used for two years. This book is a 1940 edition. At first, I thought, for a graduate of the Naval Academy decades earlier, this book is too new. It doesn't make sense. Later on, I would realize that he is an senior officer or captain of several ships. I concluded that he needed a current copy of the manual as a reference for the current Navy procedures indoctrinated into seamen.

I decided to get the book confirmed as belonging to Marc A Mitscher. This is not an easy task. Many of the archives I checked that housed what remains of his books and possessions could not confirm the book.




However, finally success. The USS Hornet CV-12 (Not CV-8) is a floating museum dedicated to preserving the history of CV-8 and much of the Pacific Theater. They do a substantial amount of research into the history of WW2 as well as the early NASA Space Program. They could confirm Marc's book.






I also asked the Navy for official records to see if there could be another Captain Marc A Mitscher.


I confirmed with the Navy Memorial as well to see if there could be anyone else. Since the name is so unusual, this was also easy to confirm on-line that no register has anyone with the same name.





The story will continue as I tried to find how the book and the watch could be related.

So first challenge since there is no direct account of Admiral Mitscher having owned this watch . I atleast wanted to eliminate him if hit was impossible for him to own this watch. I check if there was "Opportunity" to own this watch. For the time period, this watch would have been a highly unusual watch to own. Also, this watch is very very rare with or without the USNA logo.

I got access to the military records for Admiral Marc A Mitscher. This is just some random images. I downloaded hundreds of pages and over a year sorted them and created a diagram of where Mitscher was sent on assignments.

















The watch was developed in San Diego.



I checked into what was a Typical Map Case for Navigator



I also tried to come up with an explanation for why was the watch in Lockbourne.
Training School Lockbourne AFB Ohio near Wright Airforce Base where the B25s were being modified for Tokyo Raiders. Also, it was a training center for bombers and Anthony said B25s were also included.








More information later...

I also checked every photo I could find for the aircrew thinking that if they all had Celestial Navigation Training from P.V.H. Weems schools, then there has to be at least one other visible on the crew members. No such luck.



Proof they had the training. Also accounts from some of the aircrew states they used Celestial Navigation to fly to China.

I sorted out the fact as I knew them and build up a timeline to see if I could spot when the watch could have been acquired. Here is an early draft of that timeline. So at least there were a few opportunities for Mitscher to have acquired the watch. I needed next to examine why would he have the watch. More discussion on that later...

This is interesting that P.V.H. Weems was also part of the Navy's effort to be the first to do the Trans Atlantic voyage while Mitscher was piloting one of the 4 Curtis Flying Boats.

The most likely place for Mitscher to aquire his Weems was in San Diego Naval Air Station.
North Island near Coronado, San Diego.


These are the catalog images of the Celestial Navigation tools.



The watch was posted by Longines on their Instagram.


It has been in WatchChronos


It has been in WatchTime as part of Longines launch of the Pioneers collection.



I still owe you a reason why Marc A Mitscher might have had the watch and
we will also discuss the means he had to get this watch through the BuNav or
as you are already aware through San Diego NAS since that was the center of
development of the Celestial Navigation method and the first Navigation School

This is my theory on why Marc A Mitscher would have been an early adopter of Celestial Navigation and would have sought out P.V.H. Weems. For several years, as a top representative for Naval Aviation, Admiral Moffet and he appeared before the Senate to get budget for Naval Aviation pilots. The US Amy Air Corp was their biggest opponent. They did not want to share the budget with the Navy.

In this role as a head of BuNav, Mitscher was evaluating in Ohio the latest aircraft and also navigation tools like sextants, chronometers, charts and books. His position would require him to evaluate if Celestial Navigation should be adopted by the Navy.

The one missing bit of information is proof he took a course in Celestial Navigation. It is extremely likely he did.
He lead a record breaking voyage from San Diego to Hawaii over the Pacific Ocean with several PBY Catalina
sea planes. The crew were all heavily reliant on Celestial Navigation. So at minimum, he had to have mastered
this form of navigation by that time.

Navigator on board a PBY Catalina from North Island using bubble sextant to position the plane.







By 1940, the below kit would have been pretty normal for a North Island Pilot.

By the time the US Navy is fully into WW2 and Marc Mitscher is fighting the Japanese, he is seen with this watch.
There are no photos of the Weems that I can find. Once the battle with Japan began, Mitscher is almost always seen with only this watch. The mystery still remains what happened between 1940 and 1941.

There isn't enough of a link other than the Bluejackets Book with his name on the book that help tie the watch to Mitscher. There is also nothing that would seem out of place for Marc A Mitscher to have owned one. He was also a graduate of US Naval Academy and was only a year or two difference from P.V.H. Weems and Admiral Byrd.
There is a "Luckbag" Year book I am looking for that shows that Mitscher, Weems, and Bryd all played football at the same time, but on different grade levels. I have the photos somewhere....

Marc A Mitscher graduated 1910
P.V.H. Weems graduated 1912
Richard E. Byrd graduated 1912

At this point, this story is more entertainment for everyone than conclusive proof.

I hope you enjoyed it.

The USNA has a building named after Marc A Mitscher.


His baseball cap is in the USNA museum collection.