Three Weathermen The Final Word

By davidbunch

Morning, December 7, 1941, Japanese carriers are steaming close to Pearl Harbor and the Philippines behind a curtain of rain and clouds that mask their movements until the last possible minute. Several times after Pearl Harbor Japanese naval forces attempted to hide their advance under clouds and storm fronts. But their earlier luck did not hold. Twice the clouds lifted, leaving the Nipponese navy exposed—an excellent target for American fighters and bombers.

On the Allied side, it was three weathermen who had the final word with General Eisenhower before he gave the go-ahead signal for the Normandy invasion. In fact, it was on the advice of meteorologists that the invasion was postponed twenty-four "hours after its original schedule because of a storm front moving eastward across the Channel. In connection with earlier North African and Italian campaigns, weathermen helped plan the bombing missions that destroyed oil refineries and other military installations within range of t h e bases wrested from t h e Germans in that area. Everywhere, on all battlefronts and at isolated stations far away from the fighting zones, weathermen kept the Allied forces marching, flying, sailing and shooting on the road to victory.

To begin at the beginning, the outbreak of the war found the United States with only a handful of trained meteorologists. Many of these were serving in the U.S. Weather Bureau. Others were just completing courses at colleges. But many future weathermen scarcely knew a thermometer from a barometer—and never expected to. Even so, the Weather Service was in the war from the very first. Five weathermen were killed during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and fifteen others were either killed or captured on Bataan or Corregidor. Up until four years before Pearl Harbor the few meteorologists in the army were a part of the Signal Corps. Then, in 1937, the Weather Service, consisting of a small group of officers and men, was transferred to the Air Forces.

By t h e time the war ended, that small group of "mets" had multiplied its numbers by 10,000 percent. Its motto, Coelum ad proelium elige, meaning, "choose the weather for action," had been put into practice countless times. Generals with stars on their shoulders looked to weathermen wearing eagles, leaves, bars and even chevrons, for the final go-ahead signal for action. Ultimately set up as the first worldwide outfit of its kind in history, the AAF Weather Service maintained dual headquarters. Broad policies of the Service were shaped at the Weather Division in Washington, D. C.

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