| The Flying Weathermen of the Second World War | | | | British Isles knew what the weather was to be before |
| were their own pilots, gunners and observers. Their | | | | Fortress Europa did. It was an Allied disadvantage in |
| planes retained the fighting armor, but three of the five | | | | the Pacific, for there Japan got the weather first. To |
| guns were removed to make room for extra | | | | make even fuller use of t h e west-to-east weather |
| equipment. Still, the two remaining guns were workable, | | | | movement, both sides tried to establish weather |
| and the pilots frequently used them. Often flying by | | | | stations in Greenland. Such stations were bombed and |
| instruments alone, in the teeth of wind, ice and cloud, | | | | bombarded until finally the Americans took firm control, |
| the reconnaissance men found holes for t h e | | | | as protectors, in both Greenland and Iceland. |
| bombers, or eli-e radioed back information that kept | | | | Weathermen in the far northern latitudes battled cold, |
| the big planes grounded. Sometimes, when one target | | | | hardship and homesickness on assignments that cut |
| could not be reached, an alternate target was | | | | them off from the rest of t h e world for months at a |
| arranged. The P-38s, usually sent out in pairs for their | | | | time. |
| own protection, ranged two hundred miles or more | | | | They fell into glacial crevasses and were lost. They |
| ahead of the bombers. Sometimes a second pair was | | | | were frozen to death, were drowned in icy waters, |
| sent out to relay radio messages from the leaders to | | | | and one was engulfed by a river of molten lava that |
| the controls at bomber bases. This procedure | | | | burst from Mt. Washington on Chuginidak Island in the |
| generally reduced the number of false starts and futile | | | | Aleutians. At far northern weather stations the |
| missions, and also cut down the hazards to be met by | | | | instruments were mounted on stilts to keep them from |
| the bombers. | | | | being buried in the snow. Camps actually were |
| Enemy interceptors and attack fire were bad enough, | | | | covered with snowdrifts, and the men got in and out |
| without having to buck the weather, too. Weather | | | | by means of escape hatches built in the roofs. To fill |
| plays pranks and does unpredictable things sometimes, | | | | out other gaps on the worldwide weather map, small |
| but its behavior usually falls into a fairly consistent | | | | "Met" detachments carried their own supplies and |
| pattern. The high and low pressure areas and the | | | | equipment into the remote regions of China, India and |
| storm fronts move in a general west to east | | | | Burma. Additional supplies reached some of these |
| procession in the northern hemisphere. This fact was | | | | posts only by parachute. |
| an advantage to the Allies in Europe because the | | | | |
