Browning chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1941-1953, 1945-06-01

journey from North Africa, but at
the same time our forecasters pre-
dicted tranquil waters in Sicilian
harbors, and the almost miraculous
calming of the seas as our landing
craft neared the Sicilian shores has
become military classic.
Admiral Halsey took advantage of
the cover of a "zero-zero" storm aft
er raiding the Marshall and Gilbert
Islands. With visibility zero and
ceiling zero, his ships, large and
heavy enough to ride out the storm,
were meanwhile safe from enemy
air attack.
At Rabaul detail plotting of the
upper air strata enabled our forces
to lay down smoke screen to blot
out our vessels and our planes from
Japanese ack-ack and dive bomb
ers. Low wind velocity was required
SO that our screen would not sud-
denly veer and cover our target in
stead. Conditions were exactly as
predicted and ordered.
Many other instances of the
use of weather forecasts by our
militarists are given, for in
stance in the Normandy inva-
sion, weather was bad and the
sea choppy, but the forecasts
were that severe conditions
would prevail for at least Fl
days after the D-Day chosen.
Axis Are Weather Conscious.
Both Germany and Japan are ex-
tremely weather conscious and both
have used weather, particularly bad
weather, to screen their activities
For instance, Germany's battle of
the bulge in the Ardennes was un-
doubtedly arranged to coincide with
bad weather that would keep our su-
perior air strength incapable of de-
cisive blows, while German ground
forces, numerically stronger at that
point, smashed through. A clearing
break in the weather came ulti-
mately and our air power went into
action to help stop the German Of
fenSive.
According to the navy, the Japs
are not as far advanced in weather
technique as either Germany or
our own military. In at least one
instance Japanese plan of action
did not work out as scheduled be-
cause of their weather miscalcu-
lations. They attempted to bring
reinforcements to New Guinea un-
der storm front so that our planes
could not spot their movements. An
unexpected or miscalculated shift
diSsipated the storm front. The
troop and supply armada was spot
ted by our reconnaissance planes.
They were attacked and destroyed
by the AAF in the famous Battle of
the Bismarck Sea.
Methods used by various countries
in weather forecasting vary. The
AAF and the navy use the Norwe-
gian theory of air masses and polar
fronts and the long series of daily
weather charts of the world pre-
pared by the weather bureau as a
basis.
Research Essential.
Almost endless research was nee
essary to code the worlds weather
data. Starting in 1912 the weather
bureau, in cooperation with the mill
tary services, started in this task
using all available weather informa-
ton in the northern hemisphere for
each day since 1899. This informa-
ton was replotted and reanalyzed,
transferred into standard code and
into a punch card system. In this
way 80 years of weather we're chart
ed and analysed within year. From
the areas studied by the army, high
priority sections, where military ac-
ton would most likely take place, a
similar card system was evolved
and total weather tabulations to date
cover about SIS million cards. At
present about 100000 cards are re-
! corded each month.