Greg Pappy Boyington 's Waltham Navigation Watch

A veteran of the American volunteer pilot corps in China, Major Boyington is one of the most famous aces of the Pacific War, the famous "Patron" of the hotheads of VFM-214 in the Marine Corps played by Robert Conrad in the series hit "Heads Burned"

At the dawn of the conflict which will see the European continent ignite, America is in a period of recession which will lead President Theodore Roosevelt to reduce military expenditure in order to inject into its economy the majority of the federal income of the year 1938. The European context does not yet make America aware of the imminence of a global deterioration of the conflict considered as local and specific to a few European countries. The United States engage in a “neutrality” which Roosevelt struggle to change. It was in July 1939 by the denunciation of an innocuous trade treaty with Japan dating from 1911, that Roosevelt skillfully set in motion what is considered to be the initial point of the United States' involvement in the conflict.

Very quickly, England, the Soviet Union and China will be supplied with war material through a "Loan" and many "volunteer" pilots will engage alongside the British and Chinese to counter the forces of the Axis. It is in this context that Greg Pappy Boyington will leave the naval air base of Pensacola in which he is an instructor with the mission of training the pilots of the Marine Corps, resign on August 26, 1941, and join the squadron of the Flying Tigers, the volunteers of General Chennault engaged alongside the Chinese in order to counter the power of the Japanese expeditionary force. He will on this occasion hang his first six victories on the flank of his Curtiss P-40B with shark jaws above Burma and win, in view of the age gap vis-à-vis the young pilots who surround him. a nickname that would follow him throughout the war: “Pappy Boyington”

It was at the Pensacola base that Gregory received his Waltham watch, a watch he kept throughout the war and which differed in size and shape from the A-11 navigation Hack Watch type watches assigned to pilots of the US Army Air Corps. Reduced in size compared to the imposing Air Force watches that embed pocket watch movements in their cases, the Waltham is preferred by naval aviation pilots for its reduced size, which allows it to be kept on the wrist after the flight. Equipped with a very readable dial with a white background, the bluish luminescent hands allow instant reading without feeling a loss of acuity during twilight periods or following exposure to sunlight from the front. The shape of the 36 mm case also allows you to mount a winder of a size compatible with staying under your uniform without being embarrassed to wind your watch or synchronize it before an attack without taking off your flight gloves. The small seconds window being housed at six o’clock, reading the time “useful in flight” on the circular minute track is simplified.
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On the other hand, the "cushion" shape of the case made it possible to mount a mineral glass protecting the dial with an ideally flat shape in order to prevent reflections and shocks during flights. And finally, the robustness of the 17-jewel mechanical movement with 18,000 alternations and a 24-hour power reserve made maintenance and upkeep as simple as possible. Greg "Pappy" Boyington was shot in 1944 and pronounced dead, posthumously receiving the Medal of Honor and the rank of lieutenant colonel. But having survived the crash of his F4 Corsair, he was taken prisoner by the Japanese and was released at the end of the war, twenty months later with a record of twenty-two aerial victories… with his Waltham….


It is thanks to this extraordinary prize list that Boyington will go down in history and inspire the television series "Têtes Brulées" which is based on the stories of his book "Baa baa black sheep". A mythical series of thirty-five episodes created by Stephen J. Cannell and broadcast in France between March 1977 and December 1979 which will arouse many pilot vocations...