Tribute to Fifty Fathoms MIL-SPEC

the surface without risk of injury; a measured ascent at the very limits of his breath was required. Of course, he survived the scare. But beyond the raw emotion of his fright, he acquired both profound insights and the inspiration to create a timing instrument for those who shared his diving passion. Returning to the Blancpain workshops, Fiechter devoted himself to designing a watch that would enable him and his fellow divers to time their dives safely, easily, and reliably. 
He had no script. There was no precedent. Most horological development builds upon the foundation laid by centuries of earlier watchmaking. With no similar guidance from past watchmakers, Fiechter thrust upon himself a white piece of paper design project. What attributes must his watch possess? Watertightness, sure. But what about setting the watch in a wet environment? If a dive were being timed, how should the starting time be marked? Magnets were part of the diving environment; how could the watch be protected? What was needed to read the watch under- water? What would enhance legibility? Should it be manual wind or automatic winding? Finding answers was vital, but so, too, was even asking all the right questions.

Things were not much easier for the French military team. In one respect, they were ahead of Fiechter. They had determined in advance that their navy divers would need a timing instrument. No need for an epiphany after running out of air during a dive. That initial insight, however, did not yield a watch that worked. At the outset, they were steered toward a French watch company called LIP which happily furnished them what it considered to be a diving watch. The samples received were small, difficult to read underwater, and, worst of all, far from water resistant. In Maloubier’s words describing the tests, the watches all “drowned to death”. Other watch houses contacted by the French had nothing to offer. Eventually, the French made contact with Fiechter at Blancpain.

The bridge between the military and amateur diving worlds was formed. The French team’s ideas for what was required for their underwater missions and Fiechter’s specifications, formed from his own diving experience, meshed fully. Given samples of the Fifty Fathoms for evaluation, the French found that the Blancpain design incorporated the features that their divers required. The Fifty Fathoms samples functioned perfectly in their tests. The French Navy had its watch.
 

And what was the formula that debuted with Blancpain’s Fifty Fathoms? Superior water resistance built upon two solutions for which Fiechter obtained patents: a double sealed crown and a special seal design for the case back. The crown was particularly clever: since there were two seals, there was protection against moisture even if the crown were pulled partway out. To further ensure watertightness, Fiechter determined that the watch must have an automatic winding system. This would minimize wear on the crown sealing system that otherwise would accompany daily manual winding. Legibility was a paramount consideration since the underwater environment and masks both conspire against easy readability. So, he settled on a large size for the Fifty Fathoms and plain white indexes, bezel markings and hands against a black background. To aid reading in darkness, the indexes and hands were luminous. One ingenious feature was the rotating bezel. By placing the bezel index opposite the minute hand at the start of a dive, the elapsed time could be read directly from the bezel. And to ensure against inadvertent rotation of the bezel, Fiechter devised a locking mechanism. To aid group diving where synchronization of watches would be important, Fiechter equipped the Fifty Fathoms with a hacking mechanism to stop the watches when the crown was pulled. Thus, the group could all set time together. Finally, knowing that the diving environment was often home to strong magnets, Fiechter protected the movement from magnetism by wrapping it in an iron inner case which would function as a shield. Never before had a diving watch been constructed with this ensemble of features and designs all perfectly conceived for the underwater world and the needs of divers. 

What was ideal for the French military perfectly sui­ted the amateur, or better said, civilian, world. The Fifty Fathoms quickly established itself as an essential piece of equipment alongside tanks, breathing apparatus, masks, and fins. Such was its perception as an indispensable instrument, that the Fifty Fathoms was generally sold in diving shops. A good example is AquaLung, which along with manufacturing scuba tanks and breathing apparatus, owned retail diving equipment stores selling and renting not only gear of their own manufacture, but Fifty Fathoms watches as well. Illustrative of the close links between the Fifty Fathoms and AquaLung’s other diving gear, the watches in their shops were specially ordered from Blancpain with “Aqua Lung” written upon the dials.

The French military was not the only navy to adopt the Fifty Fathoms for its divers. It became the watch for the navies of the United States, Germany, Spain, Israel and Pakistan among others. But it is its history with the United States Navy that merits its own dedicated chapter in the larger Fifty Fathoms story. These United States Navy Fifty Fathoms watches came to be known as “MIL-SPEC”. Today, MIL-SPEC models are arguably the most coveted and sought after Fifties watches in the vintage market, with skyrocketing auction prices. And it is the MIL-SPEC patrimony that inspired Blancpain’s new limited edition Tribute to Fifty Fathoms MIL-SPEC which was a sensation at its debut during the 2017 Basel fair. We will return shortly to the description of the new limited edition piece, but first let us turn to the history that lies behind it.
 

3.7.4 Requirements, Dials and Hands.
The three hands shall be distinctly different from each other and shall clearly stand out from the dial background when viewed in either natural daylight conditions or total darkness.

Outer, rotatable ring
3.6.6 Requirements, Case Rotatable Ring.
The watch shall be equipped with a rotatable ring in the location normally occupied by the bezel. (In use, the ring will be rotated to line up the index mark with one of the hands.) The ring shall be designed to be rotated and set by hand without tools and shall 
be protected against unintentional movement caused by abrasion, shock and vibration.

While the American Navy was waiting for the “favored” US watch company to develop a watch, it needed interim supply. Its efforts were summarized in a December 1957 report where it determined that Blancpain and one other Swiss brand had watches that were considered acceptable for use. 

Blancpain remained a step ahead. It already had more than two years of experience with the Fifty Fathoms. That experience led Fiechter to add one feature to his original 1953 Fifty, a moisture indicator. The idea of having a moisture indicator made sense to Fiechter. He knew that in many environments, and most particularly in the military arena, the Fifty Fathoms watches were not handled in the same way that a normal owner would utilize his personal watch. Instead of being given to a diver to keep and wear as if it were his own watch, the watches were provided to military personnel at the beginning of a mission along with the rest of the diving equipment and were returned to the equipment personnel at the conclusion of a dive. Thus, a diver would likely be diving with a different watch on each dive and, vitally, when receiving a watch along with his other gear prior to a dive, would have no idea how the watch had been previously used. Said more starkly, the diver would not know if the watch he was then being issued had been misused by someone earlier. Fiechter saw a risk in this. What if during an earlier dive, the crown had been caught on netting or had been recklessly manhandled by the diver which might have allowed moisture into the watch? Unless something had been reported, these events would be unknown to subsequent users. Fiechter’s solution was elegant. He fitted a small disk upon the dial in the 6 o’clock position that would change color in the event of a moisture intrusion. Not only was this version of the watch adopted by the French Navy, Jacques-Yves  Cousteau and his team dived with them, including during their filming of the Academy Award winning film Silent World. 

Upon learning of the US Navy’s draft 1955 specification, Fiechter improved the design of the moisture indicator. Instead of a simple disk that would change color, he developed a bi-colored version: pale blue on one half and red on the other. In the event of moisture intrusion, the blue half of the disk would change its color to red. Thus, when a diver was issued his watch for a mission, if the blue color showed well on the disk, he could wear the watch with confidence that it had not been compromised earlier. 

The series of Fifty Fathoms equipped with this bicolor moisture indicator was named “MIL-SPEC” as it was developed in conformance with the draft Navy specification.

Several Blancpain MIL-SPEC watches were tested by the US Navy in 1958. Alongside Blancpain were watches from two other Swiss companies. The watch from the American company that the Navy had been favoring was still under development and, therefore, was not tested. The approval for interim use of the Blancpain MIL-SPEC was affirmed. Indeed, it was the only watch in the test which included all the elements laid out in the still in draft form 1955 specification. Interestingly, the one other Swiss watch that had been approved for interim use alongside Blancpain in 1957 failed the test and was deleted from the US Navy’s list.

Yet another round of testing took place in 1959. 
Plainly this round was occasioned by the fact that the favored American company had finally built its prototype USN watch. Far from cloaking its bias, the Navy expressly wrote that the “primary objective” for conducting this new test was to have an in-service evaluation of the American watch alongside the Swiss timepieces. In the case of Blancpain, the Navy saw no need for testing as such. It had progressed beyond testing to real world experience. The Navy wrote, “This watch [Blancpain] has not been put through any special tests since the [1958 report], but has been used in numerous working dives on a continuous basis.” 

The American watch did not comport itself well. The Navy found a “tendency of the bezel ring to come off”; that its moisture indicator only worked to determine watertightness at the time of manufacture; and that the design of the face and hands was “short of optimum”. By contrast, the only watch that satisfied every single test and met all criteria was the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms MIL-SPEC. The report recites the Navy’s experience with twelve Blancpain Fifty Fathoms MIL-SPEC watches during what it called “Operation HARDTACK”. These twelve Blancpains were worn continuously for three to four months during the operation. The description of the operation speaks volumes:

“The [watches] were actively used by divers during this period and subjected to shocks and hard use during heavy work at the surface as well as to submersion. 
The maximum depth of dive was 185 feet, but an extremely large number of dives were made to depths in the vicinity of 150 feet. The primary employment of the watches was to scuba diving, in which timing was extremely critical due to the depths concerned.”
 

The performance of the watches was described as “highly satisfactory” and none of the watches “gave any evidence of leakage”. The rotating bezel was called out specifically. 

“The outer ring of the watches soon came to be re­garded as an indispensable feature…The ease of setting the ring and of reading the numbers were very clearly superior in the Blancpain watch as compared to various other types that were in use at the scene.”

As well, two other Blancpain special features were noted:

“Two seemingly small features—the fact that setting the watch did not require any unscrewing of a sealing cap and the fact that the hands stop when the stem is pulled out—both proved significantly valuable in 
situations where rapid ‘synchronization’ of several watches was required. The fact that the lack of a sealing cap apparently did not impair resistance to leakage should be noted.”

What the report is referring to are in fact two design elements that Blancpain incorporated in the Fifty Fathoms dating all the way back to Fiechter’s first versions. The movements were designed to “hack”, which means that when the crown was pulled to the time setting position, the movement is stopped. That is what allowed the ease of synchronization which is reported. The superior water resistance without the need of a screw down cap is attributable to Fiechter’s patented double sealed crown.

The conclusion of the report adds to the praise:

“In summary, experience with 12 Blancpain underwater watches during Operation HARDTACK yielded virtually complete satisfaction. No worthwhile suggestions for improvement of this watch can be offered.”

One further observation jumps off the pages of the 1959 report where all of the military criteria were listed and the performance of the timepieces recorded. The only watch rated “satisfactory” on all aspects evaluated by the Navy was the Blancpain.

Two iterations of specification were to be issued by the Navy, one in September 1959 and a follow-on version in March 1961. The difference between the two largely rests on the addition of non-magnetic criteria. The 1961 version added this element in order to guard against the watches setting off magnetically triggered mines. The Fifty Fathoms was qualified under both. The 1959 version of the specification defined the original Fifty Fathoms MIL-SPEC, which has sometimes been called the MIL-SPEC 1. The non-magnetic version defined the later Fifty Fathoms MIL-SPEC ^2.1

These specifications required qualification testing at a military facility, notwithstanding all the testing that had taken place previously. The site chosen by the Navy was its Frankford Arsenal in Philadelphia which was opened in 1816 during the presidency of James Madison as a small arms and munitions facility.² 
Larry Tornek vividly recalls attending the qualification testing program. Then a graduate student at the prestigious Wharton Business School in Philadelphia, Larry was nominated by his father to attend on behalf of Blancpain. The tests were brutal and one stands 
out in his memory. Paragraph 4.4.9.1, conceived to test the strength of the crystal, called for placing a 40-inch-long steel tube upon the watch’s crystal and dropping a 5/8-inch solid steel ball down the tube so as to strike the crystal!

¹ The MIL-SPEC 2 watches are extremely rare today. They were constructed using special metal which had greatly reduced magnetic attraction, had a brushed finish to ensure against “sparkling” and a movement utilizing beryllium. As these watches were issued to Navy divers as military equipment and not as personal timepieces, only a scant few found their way into private hands.

² The Frankford Arsenal ceased government operations in 1977.  Today it is an office park.