Watchlords

In 1926 two well established watch manufacturers in the German town of Glashutte joined forces with the aim of producing their own mechanical movements to compete with the neighbouring Swiss.

Two years after the start of World War II, work on the Tutima Flieger Chronograph was complete. Developed for the rigours of the new faster, higher flying, combat aircraft it was used by German pilots through the war.

As the Russian Army advanced through Germany at the close of World War II they captured Glashutte. The Soviets quickly recognised an opportunity and seized all the watchmaking machinery and equipment, technical diagrams and spare parts, that they could, loaded them onto trucks, and carried them off as war reparations to Moscow
From 1947 the First Moscow Watch Factory, the major Soviet watchmaker of the time, started to supply Soviet Pilots using re-branded and re-cased German watches, and by 1949 the captured machines were producing components to enable the factory to produce components for a watch that was the same design as a Tutima Type 69 Chronograph
The French military used a number of the original Tutima watches, rebranded as IRAM, for their own pilots and also as a design template for future models.


https://www.intlwatchleague.com/entry.p ... rman-Pilot