| War throws up some surreal moments, as well as the | | | | detachment moved seventeen times in thirty days. It |
| horror and tragedy. WWII personnel at one remote | | | | covered five hundred and twenty miles and was |
| post during the Burma conflict were invited to take | | | | ready for business within two hours after reaching a |
| part in a war between two headhunting tribes. The | | | | new point. Despite heavy artillery fire and air attacks, |
| men declined, but later, when their would-be hosts | | | | the outfit took more than two thousand observations |
| passed with thirty bloody trophies, the "Mets" radioed | | | | and issued more than a hundred and fifty forecasts |
| for a box of hand grenades, just in case the tribe | | | | daily, while the radio operators sent out about a million |
| decided to add some Yankee heads to its collection. | | | | code words in twenty days. Weather equipment was |
| The gods of old China did not object to sharing a | | | | as elaborate or as compact as conditions permitted. |
| temple in the foothills of the Himalayas with an | | | | Europe lent itself to motorized units, while the Pacific |
| American weather outfit. But this was no stranger | | | | islands and vast road less areas of Asia made such |
| quarters than the shell-wrecked wine cellar on the | | | | outfits impractical. To meet conditions in these latter |
| Anzio beachhead that sheltered another weather unit | | | | places, which were inaccessible even to a jeep, |
| during the battle there. Another "met" outfit at Salerno | | | | weather stations that could be packed in five boxes |
| sweated copiously, but not because of the heat, when | | | | were designed. Each box could easily be handled by |
| it found it had been sharing the area with four live | | | | one man. Such stations, dropped by parachute from |
| German mines. Mobile units traveled all over Europe. | | | | an airplane, carried on mule back or by human porters, |
| Meteorological teams drove their motorized | | | | could be set up in a tent. |
| stations-trucks, vans and jeeps-out of the landing craft | | | | Thus, the work of the uniformed meteorologists played |
| and on the beaches while the battles were still raging. | | | | an important role in bringing about victory. While most |
| Even so, they were not the first weathermen to arrive. | | | | of its activities were cloaked in secrecy for security |
| Others had jumped with the paratroopers, carrying | | | | reasons, the AAF Weather Service spread its wings |
| anemometers and psychrometers instead of tommy | | | | and its instruments all over the world, so carefully and |
| guns. | | | | so thoroughly that scarcely a cloud or a raindrop |
| These pioneers radioed out weather information that | | | | escaped inspection by the khaki-clad weathermen. |
| influenced the landing of other men and material. Once | | | | During the war years the "mets" blazed a trail for the |
| on the ground, the mobile weather units set up for | | | | skyways of the world. And now that World War II has |
| business and issued their forecasts with the assault | | | | ended, those trails are ready and waiting to be |
| forces. During the campaign in Normandy, one weather | | | | expanded and bettered by peacetime trade and travel. |
