Coordination of RAAF and United States Army Air Force and Navy Weather Services (continued)

To assist the USAAF and Navy, an outline of the Australian Met. organisation was printed and distributed to US forces. All D.Met.S. services and resources were made available to the Allies, and most American weather personnel were given ten days instruction and training in Australian meteorological practice. Forty forecasters and 140 observers were involved in this training.

Operational Difficulties

1. Two cyphers were in use in the Areas for collective weather broadcast messages, the most generally used being Andusyn;


2. Five codes were used for encoding weather reports and forecasts to and from aircraft, AirWeathco probably having the maximum usage;


3. Four cyphers were used for encyphering forecasts and reports to and from aircraft, Andusmet probably having the maximum usage.

The resultant operational difficulties were the risk of providing incorrect information due to mistakes in using various cyphers and different types of cypher-key indicators, and mistakes due to non-synchronous changeover to new cypher packs or series. Because of the complexity of distribution, stations frequently did not receive messages because of the use of one particular cypher (WAC-1) in the south Pacific. The resultant hourly-line instead of random-line selection meant that weather information sometimes lacked adequate security.

These difficulties made it regrettable that the Andus codes and cyphers designed at the Batavia conference of 1941, were either not known to, or not distributed as intended, amongst the headquarters staff of the US forces likely to engage in active operations in the Australasian region.

Bureau of Meteorology