When Jacques Cousteau was a French
naval officer in W WII, he helped set
up France’s elite commando frogmen
unit. (Presumably as a side hustle
while simultaneously pummelling the
Hun.) Around the same time he went off
to embrace the life aquatic, the special
ops divers of Marine Nationale started
looking around for a watch company
that supported their underwater mission.
They found Tudor, and a decades-
long collaboration was born.
After an evaluation process in 1956,
Tudor Submariners became as much
a part of the French combat swimmers’
Tudor x Smith Journalkit as scuba tanks, foot fins and the kind
of fetching mid-century wetsuit later
made popular by James Bond, Action
Man, and Monsieur Cousteau himself.It didn’t take very long for the first Tudor
watch to grace a French combat swimmer’s
wrist. The brand’s first diver’s watch – the
Oyster Prince Submariner 7922 – was
produced in 1954, designed for durability,
reliability, precision and waterproofness
at a moderate price. This early model
tool-watch had a functional immersion
depth of 100 metres, though after much
experimentation, post-1958 versions
managed to plumb greater depths.In the ’50s, the combat swimmers’ role
was evolving, too. Having developed
roles and skill sets during the nation’s
misadventures in the Indochina War,
France’s battle frogmen formed a unit
called Commando Hubert, named for
one Lieutenant Augustin Hubert – a hero
of the Second World War. Their specialty
was maritime counterterrorism, as
well as training other French military
and police units who occasionally
needed to operate underwater.Clearly there was a market for combat
divers keeping time, because the Marine
Nationale started ordering up watches
before the Submariner even made it onto
Tudor’s official catalogue. Navies from the
U.S., Canada, Argentina, South Africa and
Italy soon followed suit, sporting handsome
Submariners that could withstand watery
punishment and intense pressures.1969 kicked off the second generation
of Tudor Submariners, with self-winding
movements and a new face featuring
square hour markers and matching hands.
At the height of the Cold War, French Navy
procurement was buying the same models
from Tudor’s catalogue as their civilian
counterparts – the only mod being an
engraving of the initials “MN” and the last
two digits of the year. Once in use, some
watches were customised by individual
frogmen with straps made from parachute
belts. (Apparently the flexible material
made the watch easy to adjust over a
diving suit.) Aside from that, frogmen
wore the same timepieces as those
on civvy street.Because the whole point of military
frogman watches is to take a battering
and keep on ticking under pressure,
few examples survive from this time in
perfect nick. Still, given their rarity and
storied pasts, they seem to be popular
with collectors. And clearly, they last a
long time. Tudor kept kitting out Marine
Nationale combat divers well into the
1980s, and the last of their watches were
decommissioned in the early 2000s. •ALL IN GOOD TIME
IN THE 1950S, THE FRENCH NAV Y’S ELITE
FROGMEN UNIT NEEDED A WAY TO TELL TIME
UNDERWATER. TUDOR ANSWERED THE CALL. Writer Jo Walker