In 1991 the Melbourne Frosterley Club proposed to the Director of Meteorology that there be joint functions to commemorate the 50th anniversary years of the Service and that efforts be made to collect, and where appropriate, publish accounts of its work. With the approval of the Director and much assistance of his staff, a joint function was held in 1991 to mark the 50th anniversary of the formation of the Service. Another joint function was held in 1995, as part of the 'Australia Remembers' celebrations.

A number of articles on the Service have appeared in Weather News, and 'The Story of the RAAF Meteorological Service' by the late Dr John Joyce was published in October 1993 as Metarch Papers No. 5. Dr Joyce's work was written for the Australian War Memorial but never published by them.

During efforts by the Frosterley Clubs to collect information on the RAAF Meteorological Service, the report which forms Metarch Papers No. 10 was rediscovered. As a member of the Melbourne Frosterley Club, and a former member of the RAAF Meteorological Service, I have undertaken, in collaboration with Ian Forrest of the Bureau's Executive and International Affairs Branch, the editorial work necessary to prepare the manuscript for publication.

This 'War History of the Australian Meteorological Service in the Royal Australian Air Force, April 1941 to July 1946' may have been intended to be the Bureau's own published record of its activities during World War II. In the event, the official history was written by D. P. Mellor as part of the Australia at War series published by the Australian War Memorial.

It is known that the report which follows was prepared by Thomas Haldane, a former member of the RAAF Meteorological Service, at the direction of H. N. Warren who, as Group Captain Warren, was the Director of the RAAF Meteorological Service and who was the Director of Meteorology at the time of preparation of the manuscript. The preface in the manuscript, reproduced in this Metarch as the Introduction, was intended for the latter's signature and the manuscript bears many corrections and additions in his handwriting. The date of 1 December 1947 at the end of the now Introduction indicates that the typed version of the draft had been completed by then. The corrections, additions and deletions in Warren's handwriting must have been made between then and the time of his death in 1951.

Bureau of Meteorology