A WORLD RECORD!
105 years ago today 09.18.2024, Roland Rohlfs, Chief Test Pilot for the Curtis Airplane Company, set a new flight altitude world record of 34,610 feet in the Curtis "Wasp" Tri-Plane. Flying higher than Mt. Everest in 1919, while in a open air cockpit plane.
Roland Rohlfs was in fact wearing a Waltham Depollier "Field & Marine" Waterproof Watch on this historic day in the skies above New York. A watch that had already been independently tested for waterproof ability by the U.S. Army Engineering & Research Division and by the United States National Bureau of Standards in 1918. Depollier's watch passed the government's 500 hour water submersion tests with flying colors! After the successful waterproof testing the United States War Department purchased 10,000 of Depollier's waterproof wristwatches, War Department contract number 160615.
This is well documented in at least two high level United States government reports. A stack of U.S. Army documents corroborate these events that took place in 1918. And then there is the full transcript from a federal lawsuit with all of the juicy details about how Charles Depollier's waterproof watch came to be.
Waltham re-issued the Depollier-Waltham Field & Marine in 2021. Discover the collection
Text by Stan Czubernat. Waltham historian and museum curator.
