Tally ho – watchmaker fashions timepieces using metal from salvaged wartime Spitfire
WATCHES worn by Spitfire pilots who helped win the Second World War can sell for thousands of pounds but now collectors can buy timepieces actually made from parts of the aircraft.
Colin Andrews, 43, from Chester, is making a set of watches recovered from the metalwork of a MkIX Supermarine Spitfire that crash-landed in a marsh in France in 1944 and was shipped over to Britain in 2017.
The aircraft, which flew with the Royal Canadian Air Force 411 “Grizzly Bears” Squadron, went down in Normandy, with the pilot, Harold Kramer, surviving the crash.
The wreckage remained in France for seven decades, with parts of it displayed in a local museum.
That was until five years ago, when Graham Oliver, a vintage aircraft enthusiast, bought the remains of the plane, registered as ML295, and brought it to the UK for restoration.
After thousands of hours of work, the Spitfire flew again for the first time earlier this year.
“The tail section was completely missing and many bits were unusable but we managed to use some of the original airworthy parts including the cockpit surround, inboard flaps, gear selector, some of the gauges and parts of the undercarriage,” Mr Oliver told The Sunday Telegraph.
Among the parts that Mr Oliver could not use were several wing sections
These he gave to Mr Andrews, a director of The Great British Watch Company, who had the idea to craft them into watch parts and name the colappeasement lection The Few as the Battle of Britain pilots came to be known.
“I was looking for an interesting project so I was thrilled to be given some bits of the wing”, said Mr Andrews,
“One piece has a shell-hole in it. But I’ve managed to find enough good parts to make the dials and hands for nearly 100 watches.
“It’s the first time parts from a Spitfire have been used as an integral part of a watch.”
The names of the 11 pilots who flew the ML295 model, including Mr Kramer, are inscribed on the back.
They surround an engraving of Sir Winston Churchill’s famous line: “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”
With each watch carrying a slice of history, it is far from a budget purchase. Acquiring one will set the buyer back £12,000, although it comes with a leather strap, handmade silver buckle and matching cufflinks, which are also made from original wing parts, as well as a replica silk “escape map”.
The maps were intended to be lightweight but durable and for use in the event that pilots were shot down and needed to find their way back to Allied territory.
The short-lived 411 Squadron was formed in Lincolnshire in 1941 and had the distinction of being home to one of Canada’s most successful fighter aces, Flt/Lt Richard “Dick” Audet who set a record by shooting down five enemy aircraft in just two minutes of combat.