An 18K Yellow Gold A.W. Co. Waltham Pocket Watch c.1880

An 18K yellow gold hunter case pocket watch by A.W. Co. Waltham featuring a white dial with black Arabic numerals at hour intervals, red Arabic numerals at five minute intervals, blue steel arrow hour, minute, and seconds hands, and a seconds complication at 6 o'clock.

Case Width: 50mm; Weight: 73.4 dwt.

Provenance

Private collection, Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Per the inscription on the watch, the piece was originally presented to Alexander McCormick Engart by Alexander A. McCormick in memory of Lieutenant Alexander A. McCormick, Jr. of the United States Naval Air Forces who died in combat in 1918. Lieutenant McCormick attended University of Chicago High School and was enrolled at Yale University before enlisting as a Seaman in the U.S. Naval Aviation Forces in 1917. McCormick trained with the Aerial Coast Patrol Unit No. 2 in Buffalo, New York before being commissioned in the U.S. Naval Reserve Force, which stationed him at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida. In May of 1918 he was assigned to Squadron 214 of the Royal Air Force, and was serving in France when he was fatally injured by an aerial gunner on September 24th, 1918. McCormick was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross, received a post obitum Bachelor of Arts honoris causa from Yale University in 1919, and was buried at the Somme American Cemetery in Bony, France. The destroyer USS McCormick (DD-223) utilized by the United States Navy in WWII was named after him.