The IWC Watch Wrist Waterproof WWW - Time514

when he performed his research. Recently, he interviewed
KNIL pilots who operated from 1946-1950.
Pilots had so few watches during those days that they had to
borrow watches from each other for each separate flight. No
IWC’s could be tracked. Some of the watches were Elgin,
presented to the pilots when they picked up their Mitchell
Bombers at the factory in Dallas, Texas. Other watches were
private property after the army had given permission for crew
members to buy their own watch.
We could not retrieve any data on what type of watch has
been worn by the Navy part of KNIL. As the majority of troops
were Ground Forces it seems logical that is where the IWC
W.W.W. has been used but we have no absolute proof.
Arnhem, in the Netherlands, is the only place worldwide where
war veterans from the KNIL still live in a nursing home :
‘Bronbeek’ (Figures 9 & 10). The average age of the veterans
is 82 years. In the museum of this home we found three
watches with KNIL inscriptions - 2 Tissot and 1 Invicta Suisse,
but unfortunately there was no IWC in the collection.
Conclusion
Although IWC produced 6000 WWW’s, this watch is now rare
and much sought after by collectors. The KNIL army used
some of these watches, and these have an additional
inscription. Less than 10 are known and all are owned by
private collectors. There are no KNIL IWC in museums in
either the UK or the Netherlands which is regrettable as this
famous watch has played a substantial role in the Dutch
military history.
If any HJ readers has additional information or corrections, we
would welcome their comments.
Acknowledgements
We want to thank B Baxter, G Casius, M Henry, K Knirim, T
Koenig, G Steer and PjC Verhoeven for their help in the
research for this article.
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