The Second World War

Japan was at war first. The Seiko Museum says Seikosha split off its watch division as Daini Seikosha in 1937, and that the Sino-Japanese War of that year, the world war of 1939 and the Pacific War of 1941 forced both firms into full war production; Seikosha had made shell fuses since the Russo-Japanese War.^5, 9

Specifications began before the fighting. Worn & Wound dates the German air ministry’s observation-watch requirement to 1935, and Panerai’s own history puts its first diving watches for the Italian navy’s underwater units in the same year.^4, 10

German Wikipedia says Glashütte’s makers became part of the armaments industry from late 1938, making observation watches, chronographs, marine chronometers and time fuzes.¹¹

The Soviet Union had built its industry only in the 1930s. The Great Soviet Encyclopedia counts three watch factories by 1940, and Europa Star says Switzerland refused to sell it watchmaking machinery.^12, 13

The war began with Germany’s invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 and ended with Japan’s surrender, signed on USS Missouri on 2 September 1945.^14, 15

Every belligerent wrote watch specifications: Germany’s Fl 23883 observation watch and DH service watches, the American A-11 and Navy chronometers, Britain’s ATP and W.W.W., and Japan’s Seikosha service watches.^{1, 4, 16, 17}

American makers were barred from new civilian watches after Pearl Harbor and turned to military watches, chronometers, bomb timers and fuzes. Hamilton delivered 10,902 marine chronometers by mid-1945, and JCK says it was the first watch firm awarded the Army-Navy E for production.^1, 18

In Germany, Wempe and A. Lange & Söhne built a standard naval chronometer from 1942, and Wempe’s company history records forced labourers from Russia and France in its Hamburg works.^19, 20

Britain found it made no cheap watches: in 1943 the Board of Trade told the Commons that Switzerland was the one possible supplier, and Grace’s Guide records that Smiths made shell fuses.^6, 21

The Soviet watch factories were evacuated east in 1941, to Zlatoust or Chistopol by different accounts, and the Moscow plant was back at work by 1942 or 1943.^{7, 22, 23}

Neutral Switzerland sold precision instruments, fuses and watches to both sides; Germany took nearly a third of Swiss exports by 1943, while a third of Swiss watches went to the United States in 1943 and 1944.²

The Allies kept a black list of Swiss firms trading with the Axis, and the agreement of 19 December 1943 limited exports to Germany. The finding aid does not say which watch firms were listed.²

Twelve Swiss firms, among them Longines, Omega, IWC and Jaeger-LeCoultre, delivered the British W.W.W. watch, mostly from May 1945.^16, 24

German Wikipedia says Germany, despite great efforts, stayed dependent on watches from Switzerland, and Worn & Wound lists Swiss makers among the suppliers of German service watches.^4, 25

Glashütte was bombed on 8 May 1945 and its factories dismantled by the Soviet occupying power; the story continues under VEB Glashütter Uhrenbetriebe (GUB).^3, 11

Some German knowledge went east: WatchTime says the naval chronometer was later made by the First Moscow Watch Factory, and Wikipedia says Stalin named the new Soviet wristwatch Pobeda in April 1945.^19, 26

The Seiko Museum says production restarted in evacuation factories at Kiryu, Toyama, Sendai and Suwa, and that all but Suwa were closed at the end of 1949; the Suwa factory became Suwa Seikosha, now Seiko Epson.⁵

The National WWII Museum argues that wartime exposure to Swiss watches undid the American industry; Waltham went bankrupt in 1949.^1, 27

The war also left veterans to retrain: the Horological Society of New York records that Arde Bulova founded a tuition-free watchmaking school for disabled veterans in 1945.²⁸