New Book Upends Watch History

A new book, The Inconvenient Truth about the World’s First Waterproof Watch, the Story of Charles Depollier and his Waterproof Trench Watches of the Great War, by watch historian Stan Czubernat, rewrites watch history as we know it and directly challenges the claim that Rolex was the world’s first waterproof watch.

This is Czubernat’s 3rd book focusing on the watches of World War I and the innovations that first brought watches from the pocket to the wrist, including the incredible work of Charles Leon Depollier, inventor of the world’s first waterproof wristwatch, the 1918 Waltham Depollier ‘Field & Marine and later the ‘Thermo’ model. 

The 341-page book documents Depollier’s work with the U.S. Army Signal Corps Engineering and Research Division to develop a waterproof watch for the military, years before Rolex released their Oyster case. Four different waterproof crowns were designed during the process and the watches were independently tested and passed by Washington D.C. by the United States National Bureau of Standards. 

Evidence for this includes exhibits from contemporary legal proceedings, sworn court testimony, US War Department reports, and correspondence from high-ranking U.S. Army officers attesting that Depollier’s waterproof design would solve many of the problems the Army was facing with timekeeping during the Great War.

Czubernat’s work directly contests Rolex’s claim that their Oyster case, developed in 1926, was the first waterproof watch in the world, and provides compelling evidence that Depollier not only was selling waterproof watches 8 years earlier to the U.S. Military but was also advertising the feature commercially as early as 1918 in publications like The Keystone and Aerial Age.

This book is a must-read for watch enthusiasts. For more information on the history of trench watches or to order your own copy of the book visit lrfantiquewatches.com.