DOXA ARMY: BACK ON ACTIVE DUTY!
6 months after receiving the official recognition (in November 2021) from the Swiss Army Combat Divers by Federal Councillor Viola Amherd, Head of the Federal Department of Defence, Civil Protection and Sport DDPS, DOXA pays a fitting tribute by reissuing the iconic DOXA Army.
As a salute to the history of the DOXA Army, Jan Edöcs, CEO of DOXA Watches invited Swiss Army Major (S2) Robert Hilty, ret. to attend the official launch event held in New York by DOXA and Watches of Switzerland. Robert Hilty (72) and his DOXA go way back: The watch has never left his wrist since the day he began basic training with the Swiss Army Divers unit. From Day One, the watch has functioned flawlessly throughout his military and civilian career, a trusted witness to major milestones in his life. It is indeed not without some emotion that he flew to New York to join in celebrating the history of the DOXA Army – with an original DOXA, as always, on his wrist.
DOXA stands out in the Swiss watchmaking landscape as one of the finest examples of a discreet watch brand with a rich and exciting history. Now located in Biel, in the heart of the watchmaking industry, and owned by the Swiss Jenny family, DOXA remains one of the legendary brands in the field of diving watches. Numerous patents and prizes at national and international exhibitions, too, have contributed to its remarkable history and outstanding heritage.
Rewind to the early 1960s. The space race is on and the whole world is looking to the stars. At the same time, another universe, much closer yet just as mysterious, also calls to us: the Sea. Urs Eschle, head of development for DOXA watches, clearly sees where all these fascinating documentaries, TV shows and magazine articles about underwater adventures lead to. Watches developed expressly for diving have been around for quite a while, but their cost is still prohibitive. Urs decides that something has to be done. The year is 1964.
Those pioneering days
The diving watch Urs Eschle envisions would not just be reliable, affordable and attractive to the growing number of scuba enthusiasts; it would also be up to the toughest standards as a tool watch for professional divers. He sets up a team that includes professional divers such as Claude Wesly, whose missions with Jacques-Yves Cousteau and active involvement in the Précontinent I, II, and III undersea habitat research programs initiated in 1962 (similar to the Sealab project carried out a few years later by the US Navy) have already gained him living legend status.
The team around Urs Eschle understands that the underwater environment is not without risks and that divers depend on their timekeeper for their safety, indeed their life. So, it is with a deep and strong sense of mission that a three-year process to develop the perfect dive watch, the DOXA SUB concept, begins.
The SUB 300 and SUB 300T unveiled at Baselworld in 1967 are the first 100% professional diving watches designed to be affordable to a broader public. And because of their quality and the radical innovations they introduce, they quickly become the reference for uncompromising professionals as well. These two models, water resistant to a pressure depth of 30 ATM (short for atmospheres, i.e., 300 meters or just over 980 feet), are also the first diving watches ever to feature a patented unidirectional rotating bezel for calculating and monitoring the dive time to ensure a safe ascent without decompression stops.
Another first in the diving watch universe: the bright orange dial, a legendary hallmark of the DOXA SUB concept. There is method to this unconventional choice of dial colour: it is arrived at after extensive legibility tests at various depths. Besides cementing its credentials as a tool watch, the orange dial makes a DOXA SUB instantly recognizable from afar – and quite distinctive from the standard black or white dials on all the other dive watches at the time. In addition, prominent indexes and an oversized minute hand (after all, that is the main unit of time when diving) coated with beige Super-Luminova™, makes it easier still to register mission-critical information in the low visibility conditions encountered underwater.
Within a year, in 1968, Captain Jacques-Yves Cousteau, co-inventor of the Aqua-Lung breathing apparatus and the spiritual father of modern scuba diving, is sufficiently impressed to adopt the DOXA SUB concept: the SUB’s orange dial becomes the sign of recognition on the wrists of the divers jumping into the water from the deck of “Calypso” to take millions of viewers on the legendary missions of “The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau”.
In 1969, the DOXA SUB concept passes muster as the Official Watch of the Swiss Army’s Elite Combat Diving unit.
In 1966, the Swiss Army sets up a special force of military divers, trained to become an elite corps. The first members of this highly specialized Swiss diving unit begin training in 1968. It is also around this time that the DOXA SUB 300T passes the stringent evaluation procedure set up by the Swiss Army for the items that would be part of the standard equipment issued to its divers.
Between 1968 and 1975, Swiss Army combat divers are systematically equipped with a SUB 300T Professional – the same as the one launched in 1967, now more popular than ever with divers everywhere.
Approximately 150 SUB 300T Professional watches are issued to the Swiss Army’s elite divers. Etched on the back of each case: the serial number matching the personal diving equipment with each diver – who was also allowed to use the watch off-duty.
The SUB 300T is so popular with the Swiss Army’s elite diving unit that other units outside of Switzerland also adopt this model.