NAWCC
39 movement; the top pusher starts the chronograph sweep second
hand, and the bottom pusher stops and resets it and the counter to
zero. Breguet overcoil hairspring, 17 jewels, 18,000 BPH, no shock
protection. The Charles Nicolet Co. was founded in 1886 by Marc
Nicolet, and he made his first timepieces in Tramelan, a town in the
Jura Bernoise, Switzerland. In 1920 Charles Nicolet founded the
Nicolet Watch Co.
William L. Holcom was a B-26 navigator assigned to the 13th
Bomb Squadron, “The Devil’s Own Grim Reapers,” stationed in
Japan since the end of World War II as part of the occupying force.
It was one of the first squadrons to see combat in the Korean War
because of their closeness to the Korean peninsula.
Navigating in the dark with the rudimentary equipment available at the time was no easy task. The 13th Bomb Squadron took
part in many night missions, despite the extra challenge it posed for
the plane’s navigators. One such night mission resulted in Holcom
missing in action. Holcom was given the opportunity to take an extra
mission