The man you see sitting in the chair reading, below, is Col. Charles A. Beckwith. He was a career US Army SF officer*. He’s wearing a Rolex and displaying some remarkable operator fashion sense.

The following information was posted by a very interesting Instagram account called Watches of Espionage (@watchesofespionage). It’s a Social Media Account That Doesn’t Suck^{TM © ®} and thus is part of the FYSA files (specifically one dealing with tactical watches) The text has was taken from multiple posts. It has been edited slightly for readability. Additional imagery from @niccoloy, which is also a SMATDS ^{TM ©®}.

Col Beckwith: Rolex 1675

David Reeder

Colonel Charlie Beckwith, founder and first commanding officer of Delta Force, the Army’s elite Tier One/Special Mission Unit (SMU). Check out this fashion choice. Complete OG.

It’s a complete gangster move (and no surprise he chose it) to rock a Rolex GMT-Master on a rubber strap. I assume it is the Rolex 1675 model with what looks like an all-black bezel. This was a practical tool for a practical man.

The book he is reading is “MI9: Escape and Evasion 1939-1945“, a classic espionage book about the British secret service that arranged the daring escapes of allied prisoners during World War II.

Beckwith is the author of Delta Force: the Army’s Elite Counter-Terrorist Unit and Delta Force: a Memoir.

Huge props to @niccoloy for finding this picture.

W.O.E.

*As a younger officer, Beckwith held many combat command billets in both SOF and conventional units. He commanded MACV-SOG’s Project Delta in 1965 and 10 years later was appointed Commandant of the US Army Special Warfare School. He is directly responsible for the establishment of 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta and played a massively influential part in the founding of the 160^th Special Operations Aviation Regiment and JSOC.

DRW

David Reeder is a longtime friend of CHA. He currently works “full time” as the editor of the GunMag Warehouse blog (The Mag Life). He is the founder of Breach-Bang-Clear and is widely considered by at least a couple of people as the world’s okayest 1/6 scale kit-basher.