Military watch Officine Panerai - the history
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The equipment of the Italian combat divers is rounded off by navigation instruments, a watch and a compass.
Officine Panerai
The selected manufacturer, based in Florence, is Officine Panerai, a small family business specializing in precision mechanics. Founded in 1865 by Guida Panerai, the company quickly gained notoriety as a supplier of instruments to the Royal Navy. The workshops for the fleet's ships produced sighting systems and various measuring instruments.
Guida has two children, a daughter, Maria, and a son, Giuseppe, who work in the family business in a mansion in the center of Florence. They also own a watch shop, the "Orlogeria Svizzera," opposite the Duomo, one of the oldest Rolex and Patek Philippe stores on the Italian peninsula.
Panerai received its first order for marine watches in 1867. Due to a lack of archives, the model could not be determined, but it was likely a deck clock.
In the early 1930s, Giuseppe, ably assisted by his sister, took over the management. Logically, the Navy turned to Panerai, a discreet and prestigious subcontractor, to supply equipment for its new units. The first watches and compasses were apparently delivered starting in 1938. This date is engraved on a drawing showing a waterproof, wrist-adjustable case that housed an ordinary watch. This first abandoned design, a watch preserved in the Naval Museum of La Spezia and engraved with "10th Flotilla MAS No. 1," a gift from Admiral Ernesto Natari (who began his career as a young officer in this unit), had all the makings of the first reference model.
The first clock
This equipment was of utmost importance during underwater missions, as time often determined the success or failure of the operation. Since producing a waterproof watch was anything but easy at the time, the Inavatian was indispensable.
While waterproof watches were first produced at the beginning of the 20th century, Panerai watches are considered the first watches specifically designed for divers. As with other Panerai instruments, the manufacturer placed great emphasis on legibility under the most adverse conditions. Protected by a thick, domed crystal, the dial is matte black and decorated with fluorescent green lacquered numerals and lines. It bears the inscription "Radiomir Panerai" in white capital letters. The hour and minute hands are oversized. The cushion-shaped case with a screw-down back is made of stainless steel and measures 47 millimeters—an impressive size considering the average diameter of a standard watch is 30 millimeters. The large winding crown is screwed down like a Rolex; the thick leather straps with pin buckles are attached to two folded steel rods welded to both sides of the case. The mechanical movements are manufactured by Rolex on a Cortebert base, commonly used for ladies' pocket watches. Without shock protection, the movement has 15 jewels.
Watches for the Navy
A small number of Panerai watches were delivered to the formidable K-Men, the Kriegsmarine's divers, whose first units were trained in Italy. These watches generally do not have numerals on the dial, but the case back may be more or less intricately engraved with the name of the unit to which they were delivered. A propaganda film about the attack on the Rhine bridges, showing the divers' equipment, certainly testifies to their use in combat.
Post-war period
A second model appeared in various versions between 1944 and 1946 and was produced until 1956–1960. The case, manufactured by Rolex, was not only thicker but also largely retained the dimensions of the 1938 model, but featured generously dimensioned lugs to which imposing pumps were attached.
There are two types of winding cranks: the first is equipped with a pressure system patented by Panerai that presses the winding crank against a gasket to ensure its water resistance; the second is the classic Rolex type. The dials are the same as those of the 1938 model, except for the inscriptions. For example, they read "Radiomir Panerai" when radium was used, "Luminor Panerai" when it was phased out in favor of tritium due to radiation, or "Marina Militare" for watches delivered to the Italian Navy after 1945.
Abandoning radium would have resulted in the decommissioning of the existing equipment. The radioactive hazard associated with this material required particularly drastic destruction measures.
The Panerai Rolex is available in two versions: with 17 jewels or with an 8-day Angelus movement. In this case, the seconds hand is located at 9 o'clock. In addition to the Navy, Panerai instruments were also used by Carabinieri divers and the police.
In the early 1950s, they were also exported in limited numbers to the USA for the production of clocks and compasses. However, French interest aroused there. The project was not pursued further, although Lieutenant Riffaut, the first commander of Commando Hubert, wrote a highly positive report recommending its introduction after a visit to his Italian colleagues in June 1953.
On the other hand, the Israeli naval commandos seem to have acquired some instruments at a time when their relations with the Italians were quite close. Around 1956, Panerai delivered two sets of watches to the Egyptian Navy, which undoubtedly represented the company's largest export market for this type of equipment: Panerai Luminors without caseback engraving and a series of round watches with an 8-day Angelus movement. This "Egyptian" Panerai was produced in extremely limited editions of 15 to 50 pieces.
The company produced a total of 300 to 500 watches between the 1930s and the late 1950s, all intended for special military units. The destruction of part of the stock explains their rarity.
The float set was delivered either in a cardboard box or in a sturdy canvas case. The instruments were made of stainless steel and fitted with nautically treated light brown leather wrist straps. The clasps are made of matte gray steel. The compass features a hemispherical rosette graduated in an alcohol bath.
The bathymeters (depth gauges) are scaled from 0 to 40 meters (or 60 meters in 5-meter increments) for air diving and from 0 to 16 meters for oxygen diving. The bathymeters and compasses we were able to examine were of the same model.
Also worth mentioning are some demonstration models for educational purposes with a transparent case back and fixed bezel bearing the Panerai name, as well as some exotic prototypes made of aluminum or composite metal.
True to its role as a research workshop, Panerai developed a modernized set consisting of a bathymeter, compass, and watch in the early 1980s—all made of titanium, a metal that combines lightness, anti-magnetism, robustness, and allergy resistance. The Italian Navy purchased only a handful of compasses; the few watches produced with Piguet automatic movements never progressed beyond the prototype stage, primarily due to budget constraints.
In the early 1990s, at the request of many enthusiasts, Panerai launched a new line of watches based on the models of the time but benefiting from the research results of the previous decade. Two models are available today: a diver's watch and a chronograph, of which only a few were produced at the end of World War II. They are crafted with the same standards of quality and perfection and produced in limited series with necessarily limited editions.
The Panerai Luminor
The first of its kind and the archetype of the professional diver's watch, produced in 1994 in a series of 1,000 numbered Luminor watches, is the epitome of the professional diver's watch. Crafted entirely of AISI 316 L stainless steel, the case boasts an impressive outer diameter of 44 millimeters. Production requires 54 steps and four series of tests, including a pressure test at 40 atmospheres, simulating an underwater depth of 400 meters. Some models have been subjected to resistance tests up to 70 atmospheres, or 700 meters.
Equipped with a domed sapphire crystal, the Luminor features a unique, patented crown protection system and a lever system that compresses the seal evenly and torsionally, as is common in traditional diving watches. Particular attention was paid to the case-strap connection; robust, screwed pivots replace conventional pumps, preventing the case-strap connection from becoming loose in the event of severe impacts.
The black dial features four large Arabic numerals and eight luminescent hour markers. The luminescence is achieved through the use of ISO 8/3 tritium, protected by a lacquer coating according to international standards. The hands are treated accordingly.
precision mechanics
The Swiss movement is a modified ETA hand-wound movement based on the 16-ligne chronograph caliber UT 5497, with a diameter of 36.60 mm and a thickness of 4.50 mm. It features 17 jewels, is shock-resistant, and features a rhodium-plated finish.
