Post pics of your watches ***Please NO QUOTING PHOTOS***

njburke wrote: »

Mark those as NSFW or we'll all be up in front of HR. As much as we admire German WW2 engineering, I did a day trip to the deutsches museum which was great, followed by the next day by a trip to Dachau. You need to do both to get the full picture.

Oh defo. The full picture is most certainly required NJ. It was a vile period in history and that vile regime directly and indirectly killed tens of millions of people. Like with anything I try to look at the balance of things. Looking at the Apollo moon landings, one of the greatest achievements in human history(Speedie owners swelling with pride. At least I hope it's pride. You can never tell with Omega pervert types... ). Born of the the Cold War which kept it cool in many ways, but also born out of Nazi scientists and their technology and many confirmed Nazis with it and some of the nastier atrocities too. That went unpunished by the US and ended up being lauded(Fair play to the Russians, they did punish the ones they captured). Never mind it directly led to making weapons of human extinction more effective, though thankfully never used. I can look at say an Avro Lancaster bomber with admiration for what it is as a thing, even though it helped firebomb and reduce many tens of thousands of men women and children to ashes and bitter memory. Few enough things in our lives are wholly untainted by the blood of someone. Hell we could be wearing clothes made in sweatshops by child labour today. The morality of objects can be a knotty problem indeed and made knottier with investigation and the blinders off. It's one of the main reasons why we all need some absolutes to some degree. Makes life easier.

For my part as far as issued military watches went I long ago made a decision of sorts that if I were to collect any they'd be from the Axis powers of WW2*. Why? Well I never served in the military, I never had to face the horrors of war and if I did I'd likely be found cowering in a closet. I grew up knowing relatives that did and against the nazis. But I did like the look and history of mil watches, so decided that the Axis powers ones were more in keeping with my own personal morality. IE if the man who had worn one originally had been a full blood nazi, he'd be spinning in his grave to see someone like me, holding the beliefs I hold, wearing it. Good. If he had been an ordinary man caught up in the maelstrom of war and patriotism, like beyond the propaganda so many were, then he'd be OK with it.

Alan Turing is my current hero, i'ld say he would have made a hell of a watch.

Turing was a true genius, an old style boffin, and what happened to that man was a tragedy and obscenity. A damned good hero to have IMHO. Though I suspect if he had designed a watch it would either be perfect simplicity itself, or you'd need to be another boffin to read it.





*some exceptions were a Longines Czech pilots watch, but it wasn't an issued one(which made it cheaper. Cos I'm tight as a gnat's arse ). Still raging many years later I sold that on... Even my Heuer "BUND" isn't one as it was never issued. And a Marathon Navigator as issued to US military types, but I got that through a mate who was in the US military. Who incidentally couldn't fathom why I wanted one as they all wore and preferred G-Shocks and Ironmans

I'm lovin the life on the ocean wave dial and the sharkfin bezel B. Well that's what I choose to call them anyway.