Some of these brands remain on wrists to this day, including IWC, Omega and Jaeger-LeCoultre. Some are lesser-known, including Buren, Lemania and Vertex. But all did a job — and did it handsomely. So ...

The IWC Mark 11 watches were so rigorously relied on by the military ... but owing much to the Mark 11 — which itself was a direct descendant of one of the British army’s ‘Dirty Dozen’. But it was the ...