Reply With QuotePossibly a CWC W10 as the G10s and divers weren’t issued until 1980.
Hi TZ,
My late brother joined the Royal Navy in 1979, my questions are, would he have been automatically issued a watch? And if so, which watch might that be? A CWC perhaps?
Thanks in advance.
Jonathan.
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Possibly a CWC W10 as the G10s and divers weren’t issued until 1980.
Depended on what he joined as I think.
Someone will correct me if I am wrong but I think the CWC W10 was the general issue watch. I'm not sure who was scaled for it though.
Yep depends on his trade , in the military you only get issued what you need and as soon as you stop needing it they take it back , unless your are friendly with the storeman ;)
Thank for the responses everyone. Yes really not sure what he started out doing but he was a leading steward for many years of his service. If he was issued a W10 would he have kept that for as long as it lasted or would it have been replaced by a G10 when they came out?
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If he was scaled for a watch, he could have gone back to stores at a later date and swapped it for a G10. I suspect if he wasn’t in an ops branch he would not have been issued one though (although I can’t say that for certain as it might have been different in 1979).
Last edited by Christian; 11th August 2022 at 17:34.
In my experience a lot of people weren’t interested in the issued watches and just wore their own. I was issued one and didn’t wear it much. Can’t remember if I handed it back or gave it away when I left, which is what I did with most of my ‘Gucci’ kit.
I have since bought virtually every type of CWC though ffs!
Thanks for the continued input everyone.
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I doubt he’d have been issued a watch.
Plenty of Royal Marines didn’t (although RM squad leaders did) so if a diver didn’t get a watch, a steward certainly wouldn’t.
As the Navigation Officer in 4 RN ships in the 1980s I had the ship's outfit of CWC Navigator watches on my PLR (Permanent Loan Record). In a small ship like a minesweeper that would usually mean two watches, one of which I used, one of which went to my assistant. In a large ship that might mean 4-6 watches. In one ship I had, IIRC, two Navigators and 3-4 Quartz Divers. I used one of the divers myself for a few days but found it of limited used without a date; all the Divers were lent out to people who had a need for them.
On leaving the ship you had to return all gear on your PLR or sign it over to your relief; the same went for the people who I had lent the watches to. But it would be most unlikely that a steward would end up with any sort of issued watch.
Interesting that you signed out watches on a short term loan a bit like you would sign out a rifle for an operational deployment.Originally Posted by HappyJack
I know that pilots were issued watches to keep as long as their service and would hand them back on leaving. When I left the RAF the only things stores were interested in was my watch (CWC G10) and any items that they didn’t want falling into the wrong hands like
body armour or respirator.
1979 0552 (Royal Navy) designated CWC W10's are a pretty rare thing.
maseman
Thanks again all. My knowledge of military doings is next to zero, so I wasn’t sure if it would be all servicemen/women that were issued a watch as standard kit.
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