Most dive watches have a metres/feet depth rating printed on the dial, usually between the 6 and centre. A simple three or four digit figure indicating the threshold beyond which the watch is likely to fail due to water ingress, a shattered crystal or even complete implosion. Of course this is only a theoretical guide based on simulated conditions using pressure testing equipment in a lab. Very few owners of dive watches ever descend close to the “100M”, “200M” or “300M” depths on their respective dials and very seldom are watches actually tested at those depths. In 1964, when Ollech & Wajs successfully pressure tested a watch to the equivalent of -1000M (3300ft), more than three times the rating of the best dive watch available at the time, it was a difficult depth to comprehend. To this day no diver has ever experienced such depths. (Click to continue reading)
If you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time, you’d better be wearing the right watch. →
US military presence in Southeast Asia, and specifically Vietnam, had been increasing ominously throughout the early ’60s. In March 1965 Lyndon B. Johnson ordered the deployment of combat units for the first time, and the same month saw the start of ‘Operation Rolling Thunder’ — an air campaign against tactical targets in North Vietnam. Another significant escalation came just four months later — on July 28th — when, speaking in a black-and-white televised address from the east wing of the White House, President Johnson committed a further 50,000 US troops to the conflict, taking the total to 125,000. Demands would be met by conscription, with monthly draft calls rising from 17,000 to 35,000. (Click to continue reading)
The failed Spring Bar AND THE WORLD’S BEST DEEP WATER ENGINEERING COMPANY →
If the name Global Marine Inc. sounds familiar, it is probably because of its controversial involvement in the Central Intelligence Agency’s $500 million attempt, in the early 1970s, to raise a Soviet submarine off the floor of the Pacific Ocean. The audacious mission, to recover K-129 along with its nuclear missiles, cryptographic equipment and code books from a crash site almost three miles beneath the surface, is said to be the CIA’s most daring covert intelligence-gathering operation ever. It was certainly the greatest-ever feat of deep-water engineering. But the story of Global Marine Inc. goes far beyond its Cold War salvage work. (Click to continue reading)