CHRONO Page

A Luftwaffe-issue watch that has been in Yorkshire for 75 years

The personal history of a Luftwaffe Hanhart

THE BEST THING about writing for Octane isn’t, perhaps surprisingly, the postman delivering yet another free Rolex, the long boozy watch lunches or even having the keys to the editor’s yacht. It’s when someone gets in touch with a letter that starts something like ‘My father gave me a watch…’

Back in February, a gentleman called Edwin from Yorkshire wrote: ‘I have a Hanhart monopusher chronograph, with a calibre 40 movement that my Father brought home when he was demobilised from his RAF unit in 1945.’ At the start of World War Two, Edwin’s father, Bert, had apparently worked as a chauffeur to a Harrogate tannery owner, then started making leather protective equipment – a reserved occupation – before joining the RAF in 1942.

This in itself was interesting enough to have my antennae twitching, but Edwin continued: ‘He travelled throughout Europe defusing unexploded bombs on airfields, allowing them to become operational again.’

Those are easy enough words to type, sitting comfortably at my desk, coffee at my elbow, in 2021, but in 1944 and 1945 the reality would have been terrifying. Yes, he would have had schematics for some Allied munitions, but plenty of German aircraft had ditched their bombs over occupied Europe. Bomb disposal was in its infancy and there had been a constant cat-and-mouse between bomb designers and the disposal teams. The Germans would install devices within a bomb – like the Zus-40 – that triggered if an attempt was made to remove the fuse. There was no way of knowing whether or not the mechanism you were crouched over and attempting to defuse was booby-trapped or not. The retreating forces also left behind plenty of improvised explosive traps of their own to slow the Allied advance.

Edwin’s father’s watch is a remarkably original example of a monopusher Cal. 40. ‘Other than being cleaned once, the watch has been in a drawer for 75-plus years,’ he says… and it looks that way. It’s certainly seen service, though. The nickel plating on the brass case has worn through, particularly on the caseback, although you can still clearly see the words

Wasserschutz and Stossfest: water-resistant and shockproof. The winding crown looks original, as does the battered acrylic crystal.

Did you spot the different colour of the hour and minute hands and see how it matches that pointer at 12 on the bezel? That’s the original radium paint, designed to make the time visible in low light. It might have been varnished at some point to prevent the lume crumbling – inhaling radium dust is emphatically not good for you. You’d have been able to turn the bezel, moving the pointer, as a basic timer. Radium is a little unusual to see on this model, as the pointer also has traces of its original red paint on the underside.

The two sub-dials take care of running seconds (at 9 o’clock) and a 30-minute recorder (at 3). You’d push the single pusher to start, stop and reset the centre seconds chrono hand. The pusher may not be as it came from Hanhart’s Black Forest factory, but looks contemporary – an inservice replacement, perhaps?

Inside the case, the column wheel chronograph movement is just as you’d expect; there to do a job, not look pretty and, as Edwin says, ‘in full working order’.

Felix Wallner, Hanhart’s current managing director, explains some of the history behind the watch: ‘The Calibre 40 monopusher versions were the first chronograph movements in the late 1930s and early ’40s,’ he says. Watches like Bert’s Hanhart Cal. 40 were designed as practical navigation instruments for pilots. ‘This watch was built for the Luftwaffe,’ he adds. ‘There was a specification on how the model had to look and what the features needed to be. That is why there is an almost identical version from Tutima, who were the second supplier.’ Military watch specialist Dr Konrad Knirim is even more specific, saying: ‘They were officially constructed and ordered for the pilots of hunters – especially the Stuka.’

So how did the watch come to Edwin’s father? Edwin says: ‘I don’t know how the watch was obtained but gained the impression a form of barter took place between the troops and civilian population.’ There was certainly plenty of bartering, but would a watch like this have made its way from a pilot to a civilian in the first place? It’s possible, but equally likely Bert may have had the watch directly from a Luftwaffe pilot. We know from Eric ‘Winkle’ Brown that some German prisoners remained on captured airfields and worked with RAF personnel. Could that have been the link?

Whatever the story behind the Hanhart’s acquisition, Edwin is now planning to sell his father’s watch to fund the purchase of a classic motorcycle. As he explains: ‘I am in my 78th year and before I drop off my perch I would like to find a 1960-66 BMW R27 to ride throughout the Yorkshire Dales.’

That seems a rather fitting use for the money, so drop me a line if you want to buy Bert’s watch and help fund Edwin’s dream.

‘THEY WERE OFFICIALLY CONSTRUCTED AND ORDERED FOR THE PILOTS OF HUNTERS, ESPECIALLY THE STUKA’