[F]Retrospective: Garret Flying Officer

If you have a galette watch that is almost certainly sold for over $10,000, it’s the early version of the flying officer with a black dial. It’s a very expensive watch, but there is limited appropriate research and documentation. More details raises multiple questions.

Let’s start with the basics. The most important watch in galette’s history, the Flying Officer has used previous unique experiments, including rotating bezels by other brands, in a new and completely innovative way. Produced in 1938 and first promoted in January 1939, this galette flying officer featured the name of a world city that represented the time zone around the edge of the dial in a contrasting white ring. The thin bezel with time marking allowed owners to track the time throughout these zones simultaneously. The fact that this simple, innovative innovation of the time is still in use in modern watches with a more or less unchanged form confirms its importance.

Aviator vs. Aviator

The first stop, name. You may not know this, but in the early days the clock was named an aviator, not a flying officer. In my archives I have two printed materials that show the black dial version of the watch. Both are featured as “new gallet flight officers.” Other printed materials with later white dial versions label the watch to the flying officer. The late galette flying officer with Randaron’s movement lost the tachymetric scale but printed the updated name on the dial.

Sensitive bezel mount system

In the late 1930s, the rotating bezel was still novel. The technology was new, not thoroughly tested and was premature by today’s standards. The truth is that Bezels fell easily from the Garret Flying Officer. If you need a complete mission test flight officer from a WWII pilot, it’s very unlikely that you will find it. A slight ridge to the case side and the bezel come off. As a result, many flight attendants on sale are “naked” without a bezel.

Naked Officer

My flying officer seen in these photos was also stripped of his bezel. I tried so hard to get the background information, but I didn’t have much luck as the clock went through multiple intermediaries. The man I bought it got a watch from Rick Kosek, who collected WWII items. He’s not a watchman, so he handed it over. “He bought it from a military picker in upstate New York. He checks with his family to see if there are other belongings from the original owner,” the only lead I got. I’m still chasing the people involved to get some information. My watches probably belonged to the pilots and soldiers of World War II, but I don’t think I’ll learn more about them.

Comparison of First Gen Bezels

Bezel mystery

I don’t think the bezel I installed on my watch is correct. Thanks to Jack Wong, I didn’t hesitate when the opportunity came to buy a later bezel from the White Dial Flying Officer in the 1950s. These are unbtanium, which is better than without a bezel. So, what is the right bezel for early flying officers?

First generation flying officer bezel

The numbers are small, thick and curved. I have to say I love that style. I only saw it in the body once and it’s a real deal. You can understand the style changes. This is just speculation, but I’m saying that Gallet will change it to make it better readability.

Vintage ads for Galal Flying Officer showing model names and updated version bezels (c. 1950)

Whether we like it or not, I don’t think the bezel attached to my watch came with one of its ages. When searching the archives, I found that there were too many first-generation bezels attached to early Black Dial Flying Officers. I wasn’t sure until I found a green brochure clearly shown. To this day, I have found no further evidence. But if you stick to the clear picture above and the fact that too many early flight attendants got such bezels, it would be wrong to call them fakes. Yes, even veteran collectors considered them to be incomplete replicas. But here we are. The bezel style seems to have been original since the last year.

1941 bezel

To make things more complicated, you need to go back to the 1941 catalogue filmed at the beginning of this article. I have never seen the bezel style in the photo on a fugitive. Neither does Pedro Matas, a lover who is obsessed with my fellow gallett. Was it just a prototype bezel or a bad picture? This is another mystery that has not been explained so far.

crown

When you think of the aviators, you can see a very individualistic “clamshell” crown. This is very large, but is quite refined thanks to its flat hat profile. This style promotes the Flying Officer’s white dial version in later catalogs and advertisements. Finding the crown of a galette flying officer with the correct flat hat crown is another Haystack needle. If you look closely at the ads of early flight officers, you will notice that there is a thick crown with no flat hat profiles.

The mysterious “djask”

Displaying “London” and “New York” at 7am in dominant positions at 12 reveals the market where the watch was designed. When you start reading other cities’ names, you may discover unusual names such as Baghdad, Dakar, Djask, and more. Why are they there and where is the very last one?

In the early days of intercontinental travel, crossing the world was not a single flight. It was a journey through a series of previous posts. Like transatlantic flights and Dakar in the Azores at the intersection of Pan AM, Djask was an essential stepping stone to enabling aviation around the world.

Djask, better known as Jask, was a small town in the Gulf of Oman in Persia (modern Iran), and sat along the atmospheric corridor connecting Europe with Southeast Asia and Southeast Asia. This was an essential stopover for airlines like KLM and Imperial Airways, the predecessors of British Airways on flights to India, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia and Australia.

Aircraft in that era were limited in scope and required frequent refueling. Jask provided an important midway point between the Middle East and India, allowing it to continue towards major cities such as Karachi and Calcutta. Jask also served as a rest area for passengers and crew members, as early flights often require an overnight stay.

Jask continued to be used as a refueling point until the late 1960s when Dubai’s rise as a large aviation hub became obsolete. The development of long-range aircraft also reduced the need for multiple outages.

Patent

“Djask” was on the dial from the beginning. The original patent document linked to Philippe Weiss confirms this. Weiss proved his creative and innovative spirit shortly after joining the family business. In 1926 he invented the screw down crown. This was purchased by Rolex’s Hans Willsdorf and later improved.

By the time Weiss filed for the patent, Garrett was already marketing and selling US flight personnel by the time he was showing the innovative watch designs that incorporate a rotating bezel to the world. Comparing actual flight attendants with patent documents suggests that Garrett’s US management will “rotate” the City ring to display the New York name at the top. Swiss patent CH215450 was granted to Philip Weiss on June 30, 1941. There is no conclusive evidence, but it assumes that Weiss’s company was manufacturing the aviators under Garrett’s exclusive contract.

Harry S. Truman in Miami, 1949 – Image: Abbey Lowe, National Park Service, Harry S. Truman Library

Truman’s Aviator

Can the story of a watch that changed watchmaking forever be even better? Yes, that is especially when the watch appears on the wrist of a man who will later become the President of the United States. Harry S. Truman was elected to the Senate in 1934 and served his first term when he was given a watch around December 1939. It was nothing more than an early model of the Garret Flying Officer. Photos from multiple archives show Truman wearing a watch. If that’s not enough, the caseback carries the name of Truman and the name of the friend he gave him. Victor R. Messour, Sen. Harry S. Truman (1935-1941), Paul Nachtman, a prominent Kansas city lawyer and personal friend.

Image: Harry S. Truman Library & Museum

In his personal letter to his wife Beth from December 13, 1939, Truman even mentions the talented Garrett chronograph.

Image: Harry S. Truman Library & Museum

Image: Harry S. Truman Library & Museum

Fake Truman

Please note that there is an incorrect watch that has been recovered by the spinning dial as Truman’s galette flying officer. As we saw above, the original Galal Flying Officer is kept safe at the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library & Museum in Truman’s hometown of Missouri Independence. Recently obtained photos of the watch raise questions about the bezel with very thin and shallow stamping. I think the original bezel was lost, but at some point I got a unique alternative. This is another theory that still needs to be tested.

I’m taking cereal seriously

Garret Flying Officer “Truman” is the earliest example of carrying the serial number 64112. Garrett first promoted the watch in January 1939, and Truman received the watch around December 1939. The last Black Dial Flying Officer we saw had a 75xxx serial. If you find a Black Dial Flying Officer with a serial number of over 100,000, we recommend paying attention to doing a thorough background check on your watch. The same applies if the caseback does not have a serial number engraved on it. This can happen if someone wants to remove the sculpture. This means that the serial number will also be removed. It’s not easy, but checking the thickness of the case gives you more insight. We also saw an example of a case where a serial was engraved. Anyway, when spending over 10,000 euros on a watch, I highly recommend doing proper due diligence and talking to an experienced collector.

Movement

Early galette flying officers housed Venus 150 movements, like other galette “clamshell” watches. Compared to the Gallet Multichron model after mostly using Excelsior Park Calibers, the movement structure and user experience are different. Therefore, one of these movements alone does not fully complete the Garrett collection.

The final thought

We are excited that Breitling recently acquired Garrett. Most galette enthusiasts believe it will spark more interest in the brand and allow more people to study individual models. I hope that Gallet will reinterpret a flying officer in the coming years and will be interested to see what the brand will add in terms of size, design, or feature. For now, I am happy with the former aviator. Happy Hunting!