The ultimate enthusiast's timepiece? The D-Day anniversary celebrations of 2024 have been many and varied, but one of the more unusual has to be ‘The Few’ collection from The Great British Watch Company, made from the wreckage of Mk 9 Spitfire ML295, which was shot down over Normandy on July 30, 1944 — 80 years ago almost to the day. As far as we know, this is the first time any Spitfire has been reincarnated in wristwatch form. Royal Canadian Air Force 411 ‘Grizzly Bears’ Squadron pilot Harold Kramer survived the crash — hidden by the French Resistance in the loft of a cottage for a month until the Allies liberated the area — but his aeroplane did not and the wreckage was used as target practice by the Germans.
After the war, it was all but forgotten until the 1980s, when it was excavated and displayed in museums around Normandy. In 2017, vintage-aircraft enthusiast Graham Oliver transported the ML295’s remains back to England and began a £3 million restoration; it finally flew again two years ago. ‘The tail-section was completely missing and many bits were unusable,’ he says, ‘but we managed to use some of the original airworthy parts, including the cockpit surround, inboard flaps, gear selector, some of the gauges and parts of the undercarriage.
’ ‘I was looking for an interesting project, so I was thrilled to be given some bits of the wing — one piece has a shell-hole in it,’ explains Colin Andrews, founder of The Great British Watch Company,.