In the Hangar with Tockr Watches and the Commemorative Air Force

Tockr has partnered with the Commemorative Air Force (CAF) to offer the D-Day C-47, a watch with a dial made from aluminum originally found on the Douglass Aircraft C-47 Skytrain that led the D-Day invasion of Nazi-occupied France in 1945. Since 1957, the CAF has been restoring, exhibiting, and flying historically significant US military aircraft. Today the CAF has over 80 units spread across the globe that collectively own over 170 vintage military planes. Tockr is an aviation-driven watch brand whose founder, Austin Ivey, is an experienced pilot, making Tockr an ideal partner for the CAF.

The plane in question was dubbed “That’s All, Brother” by its crew. The best interpretation of the name is that it was 1940s-speak for something like: “You’re Going Down, F*!#@r”—a fitting name for a plane that would drop the first armed paratroopers into Normandy on D-Day.

The CAF is resurrecting this plane right down to the same slapdash paint-job, grammatical errors, and other authentic details they’ve painstakingly researched from a limited number of photographs. Artists have even projected those photos onto the plane in order to trace out the exact dimensions of various markings. Proceeds from sales of the Tockr D-Day C-47 watch will go back to the CAF to help complete the restoration.

Both Erik and Austin are thoughtful watch collectors with beautiful collections. Erik brought a box full of his favorites, and we spent hours geeking out over coffee. Where Austin owns significant references from some of Switzerlands’ top brands, Erik has an eye for great deals and the patience of a one-shot deer hunter. Standouts include Erik’s 34-millimeter, black-dialed Tudor Prince Date, his tidy Eberhard regulator, and his Glashütte Original Senator Klassik, all smaller references with huge wrist presence that he got at great prices. By the time the three of us headed out to the CAF’s hangar to see the plane that helped stomp out fascism, Erik, Austin and I had already bonded the way watch geeks naturally do.

I hadn’t realized what a special experience this private tour of the CAF’s hangar would be until we walked inside and took in the various military aircraft. Erik and Austin were breezily identifying the planes while I read informational placards. The large C-47, “That’s All, Brother,” stands center-stage in the hangar and looms above the assortment of nimble fighters like the P-39, U-3A, and T-6 that make up the rest of the exhibit.

Among aviation historians there is some debate about how to best describe the role of “That’s All, Brother” during the D-Day invasion. Some argue that this C-47 “led the invasion” as it was the first plane to bring armed paratroopers out over enemy lines that day, while others contend that the Pathfinders—small paratrooper squads who first secured and signaled from drop points from within Nazi territory—should be said to have led the invasion. I’m going to guess that members of both divisions were feeling something more like fear than pride about being first to parachute into Nazi territory, and, regardless of how one assigns leadership of the D-Day air invasion today, we should be mightily grateful for the success of both air drops.

I didn’t feel the full emotional pull or the historical significance of the plane—or the watch, for that matter—until I stepped inside the fuselage of “That’s All, Brother.” You could be a Gandhi-inspired pacifist, a Quaker conscientious objector, and an anti-war activist all rolled into one, and I’m convinced you’d still want to salute the entire US Military upon stepping inside that C-47. Though large for its time, the C-47 is cramped and rickety, with the tiny cockpit backed by large racks of analog communication equipment and a tiny navigator’s desk. Behind that crammed control center, the main fuselage remains wide open for troops and cargo. Were you a paratrooper you’d get just enough room to sit your freezing butt on one of the fuselage’s hard metal benches, and about half way down that corridor you’d see the door from which you’d soon fall into the night sky above Nazi territory in order to then face highly motivated and heavily armed Germans in old-school ground combat. Sitting on that bench gave me chills, and, subsequently, so did wearing the D-Day watch.

The restoration of “That’s All Brother” has been a long, multi-million-dollar project, yet the plane is nearly ready to fly across the Atlantic to be part of upcoming D-Day celebrations. Because some of the plane’s aluminum couldn’t be safely salvaged, there were some original scraps left over, and it is from those that Tockr derived the dials of the D-Day watch.  Depending on the condition of the remaining paint, these dials fall into three categories: Clean Cut are monochromatic with paint that’s aged but largely in tact; Stamped include other colors from printing on the plane itself; and the Hard Worn dials are from scraped and worn sections. My colleague Sean Paul Lorentzen wrote the watches up, so you can read about the details there.