Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
War time capture
Watch seized in Bridge Too Far conflict set to fetch £50k at auction
A RARE Rolex watch a British soldier took from a captured Second World War German diver is set to sell for £50,000.
Sgt George Rowson seized it from one of a team who tried to blow up the crossing at Nijmegen in Holland, which featured in the film A Bridge Too Far.
George scratched his name on the Panerai 3646 – made with a Rolex mechanism – and treasured it.
He died aged 81 in 1996 but had handed it to his son, who is selling it.
In a letter George told how, on September 29, 1944, 12 German frogmen entered the River Waal six miles away, with explosives they attached underwater.
But the exhausted divers emerged from the river too soon thinking they were back behind their lines and George’s unit pounced.
He wrote: “They were wearing these rubber suits and each had a watch on one wrist and a compass on the other.” Only 618 of that Rolex model were made, for the Italian navy. They had luminous dials for use in night raids by “human torpedoes” – missiles steered by divers who then put a detachable warhead on to enemy ships. The Italians gave their German counterparts the watches.
Sgt Rowson, who served in the 43rd Reconnaissance Regiment of the Royal Armoured Corps, was defending the Nijmegen bridge from German counter-attacks in the failed Operation Market Garden, designed to seize bridges and ease the Allied advance into Germany.
The watch is being sold by Fellows of Birmingham on January 30. The firm’s Alexandra Whittaker said: “These watches are very rare. This example has really strong provenance and comes with a letter of authenticity from Sgt Rowson.
“He wore it a few times but mainly kept it as a keepsake.”
IN LETTER ABOUT CAPTURE