Watches of Espionage: Tools of the Trade

Available for pre-order now in Cold War and GWOT editions, with limited-edition challenge coins included on all orders through December 12. Click HERE to pre-order. 

Bottom Line Up Front: We wrote a book, over 500 pages of original photography and archival imagery, looking into the history and culture of the intersection of watches and the military, intelligence, and national security communities. This is our most significant project to date; we call it 

Watches of Espionage: Tools of the Trade

At W.O.E., our core competency is storytelling. After a career at CIA as a Case Officer, I started W.O.E. to give our community a voice in the watch world. The concept of storytelling in this space is not new, and has been attempted by major outlets for years. The main difference is that this is our story, and this time, we are the ones to tell it. The book covers more than 160 timepieces with real history from over 40 brands and some of the most elite units in the United States and around the globe.

Cover: Green Global War on Terror (GWOT) edition with gold accents, featuring a map of Kabul and elements from an Arabic-dial watch.

Watches of Espionage: Tools of the Trade is about watches, but its foundation is people. Some names you’ll recognize: Jack Carr, former SEAL and author of The Terminal List, with the Sea-Dweller his father gave him at BUD/S graduation; Elliot Ackerman, Marine Raider turned CIA paramilitary officer, with the Explorer II he bought in Dubai after Fallujah; Chris Costa, a career Army intelligence officer; and retired SEALs Dave Hall and Rob Huberty. But the majority of the individuals in our book are not household names, and many from CIA, NSA, and various law enforcement and special operations units have asked to remain anonymous.

Chapter 2 Excerpt: This Omega Seamaster Diver 300M Unit Watch, commissioned for the GIGN, RAID, and BRI units securing the 2024 Paris Olympics.

A Coffee Table Book?

This book has been over two years in the making, created through multiple meet-ups and photo shoots in DC, North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, and Europe. Not merely a photo book, Watches of Espionage: Tools of the Trade is also the product of a 40,000-word manuscript. Furthermore, we have scoured government archives for both historical and present-day photos of practitioners using their tools in the field. Many of the featured historical issued watches and unit watches have never been seen before.

My friend and publisher James Rupley hates the term “coffee table book” because he thinks it degrades his work, and he is right. Watches of Espionage: Tools of the Trade is a work of art, complete with world-class original photography, authentic personal gear and artifacts of service, and archival documents and photos, spread across more than 500 pages in a lay-flat, Smyth-sewn hardback. The book has gilded page edges and is available in several different collector's editions. This book will earn a coveted place on your shelf. (Author's note: I still call it a coffee table book to annoy him.)

Watches of Espionage: Tools of the Trade is broken into four main sections, or chapters. The book can be read cover to cover or a single page at a time.

Chapter 1 - Issued Watches

Chapter 1 Excerpt: A South African Navy-issued Tudor Snowflake Submariner reference 7016 from approximately 1975, identifiable by its serial number engraving on the caseback.

Our book opens where it all began, with military-issued watches. The first chapter traces the watches procured by defense departments around the globe and tailored to specific roles, from the British “Dirty Dozen” and other watches of the Second World War to the Tudor Submariners of UDT frogmen and SEALs, and later the Seiko 6309 and Casio G-Shock. 

Many of today’s most recognizable names, including Tudor, Omega, Rolex, Breitling, Blancpain, Benrus, and Seiko, built their reputations, in part, on the foundations of military contracts, and this chapter tells those stories and the stories of the men who used them, through the watches themselves. It then follows the thread to the present day and the small number of digital and analog watches still officially issued, from Marathon, which supplies American and Canadian forces, to CWC and Elliot Brown, which equip specialist diving units within the British Ministry of Defence.

Units and countries covered include but are not limited to France’s Marine Nationale, MACV-SOG, the CIA’s Special Activities Center, West Germany’s Kampfschwimmer, Britain’s Special Boat Service, and the Iraqi Air Force.

Chapter 2 - Unit Watches

Chapter 2 Excerpt: The NSA Breitling Superocean Heritage II, commissioned in 2017 for the agency’s 65th anniversary and limited to 100 pieces. The hour markers carry a cipher… 

Next, we move into unit watches, one of our favorite topics and arguably the clearest expression of watch culture today. This chapter covers customized timepieces produced for members of a specific military, intelligence, or law enforcement unit, many of which have never been seen before — from the Breitling watches of the 1990s and early 2000s, which laid the groundwork for today’s more formal programs, to the current leading Swiss manufacturers such as Omega and Tudor.  

Each watch and discreet unit watch program offers unique insight into these individuals and broader communities. We then expand into newer entrants like Bremont, Christopher Ward, Elliot Brown, and Sangin Instruments, which have developed thriving programs in recent years.

Units covered include the US Secret Service and its Counter Assault Team, SEAL Team Six, the CIA’s special operations units, France’s GIGN, Britain’s Royalty and Specialist Protection, a selection of several Middle Eastern units, and private security company Blackwater.

Chapter 3 - Private Purchases

Chapter 3 Excerpt: The Rolex GMT-Master reference 1675 owned and worn by John L. Plaster, a MACV-SOG reconnaissance team leader with 5th Special Forces Group who completed three combat tours in Southeast Asia beginning in 1968.

Chapter three covers private purchases: watches bought by individuals with their own money and worn as tools on deployments and at home.

From Rolex, Omega, Tudor, and Breitling to Panerai, IWC, Sinn, Zodiac, and Sangin Instruments, each watch and story differs, but there are clear patterns that arise. While some of these examples are historic artifacts, including Submariners and GMTs worn in Vietnam, many are community submissions still worn in the field today. 

The privately purchased watches in this chapter belong to individuals in a wide range of units and organizations, ranging from MACV-SOG, US Army Special Forces, and Navy Swift Boats in Vietnam to the CIA’s Global Response Staff and Special Activities Center, French Special Operations, an Army Special Mission Unit, and several federal law enforcement units.

Chapter 4 - Spy Gear

Chapter 4 Excerpt: Chapter Excerpt: The Cold War-era Hanhart Protona, with a microphone hidden inside its perforated case.

Chapter four is Spy Gear. Hollywood’s lasers and grappling hooks hidden in Submariners are fiction, but watches have long served as tools of tradecraft. We were granted access to the archives of the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC, and the collection of H. Keith Melton, to document how they were used for concealment, surveillance, and eavesdropping. From the Hanhart Protona microphone watch and a CIA-modified Seiko camera to a KGB pocket watch with a hidden cavity.

Photography:

At W.O.E., part of our model is to partner with proven professionals when creating products that are outside our wheelhouse. We’re pretty good at content, but to bring Watches of Espionage to life in book form and do it justice, we parted with photographer and publisher James Rupley. 

James is the talented photographer behind many of the photos that you have seen in W.O.E. dispatches and videos, and he has published more than 40 books over the past decade in the militaria and small arms reference book category through his publishing companies Headstamp Publishing and Vickers Guide. 

Accompanied by world-class original photography of these remarkable timepieces, paired with authentic personal gear and archival documents and photos, and presented in a premium “lay-flat” bound hardback form, with further options for special editions and a collector’s grade commemorative slipcase

Two Covers - One Book

The book is available in two cover options: a blue Cold War-inspired edition with silver accents, featuring a map of Cold War-era Berlin, paired with elements from the US Military Type I dial, and a green Global War on Terror (GWOT) edition with gold accents, featuring a map of Kabul and elements from an Arabic-dial watch. The blue “Cold War” Edition and green “GWOT”  Edition can also be paired with an optional collector’s grade slipcase featuring annotations by W.O.E. (and approved by the CIA’s Publication Review Board) to the underlying cover maps.

The UDT Handbook

Excerpt: US Navy-issued Tudor 7928 pictured alongside the UDT Handbook, with the Tudor Submariner Reference 7928 pictured.

Alongside the book, we’re offering an add-on: a collector-grade reprint of the US Navy’s Underwater Demolition Team Handbook. First published in 1965, a few years after the Navy commissioned SEAL Teams ONE and TWO, the manual served as the textbook for UDT training and remained a reference for SEALs and frogmen into the 1980s. It covers demolitions, weapons, diving, communications, intelligence, map reading, first aid, and survival, and includes two photographs of a Tudor Submariner reference 7928 (one of which is on a UDT frogman) — the same watch covered in the book’s first chapter. The reprint is a 223-page hardback that remains faithful to the original printing, while also adding certain premium design upgrades, such as the hardback binding and gold foil design elements on the cover. It is available on its own or bundled with the Watches of Espionage: Tools of the Trade book.

Tools of the Trade Challenge Coin

Each book ordered prior to 12 December 2026 will include a new limited edition challenge coin that will not be available after the pre-order closes. The first, an antique gold-plated challenge coin with the green dial map, will be included with the GWOT Edition, and an antique silver-plated version with the blue dial map will be included with the Cold War Edition.  Each coin features the W.O.E. spearhead on the opposite side of the coin.

These challenge coins will not be sold separately and will not be included with orders placed after December 12th, 2026.

Chapter 1 Excerpt: First issued to the Special Boat Service in 1988, the CWC SBS Diver remains an issued dive watch with UK Special Forces today.

Final Thoughts

I really want to thank you for the support on this project. Watches of Espionage: Tools of the Trade would not be possible without the dozens of people who trusted us with their watches and their stories. Tools of the Trade will be the lasting artifact of what we built together: a community that finally got to tell its own story, in its own words, with the watches that were there for all of it.

Many of the people in these pages will never be publicly recognized for what they did. Their watches were there, though, and now their stories are on the record. That matters to me more than anything else we’ve done.

Thank you for reading, for watching, for sending in your stories, and for trusting us with them. This book is as much yours as it is ours.

Key Dates

Pre-orders open on 12 November, and each Cold War Edition and GWOT Edition book pre-ordered through December 12th, 2026 will include a complimentary limited edition W.O.E. challenge coin (Cold War coin for each Cold War Edition, and GWOT coin for each GWOT Edition). Click HERE to pre-order now.