Training of US Personnel

Meteorological training being conducted on the Headquarters roof

Differences of approach and training in weather science between Australians and Americans naturally gave rise to many problems, but mutual goodwill did much to solve them. Steps also were taken to coordinate aviation forecasting practice for the two services and to standardize the performance of routine duties of RAAF and USAAF meteorological stations. Both Australian and American weather men benefited from the close association, which continued until the end of 1942, when the US Air Force was reorganised as a separate command and the Allied Meteorological Service was reorganised into Australian and US components. In place of the Allied Directorate, a coordinating committee was appointed at GHQ by General MacArthur, with Group Captain Warren as chairman, to coordinate services within the South-West Pacific area, and, later to secure coordination throughout the Pacific and South-East Asian theatres.

By 1943 the increasing tempo of Pacific offensive air operations was making heavy demands on the trained personnel available to the Directorate. In the north pools, or groups, of meteorological personnel and equipment were established at the area meteorological headquarters at Townsville so that men and materials would be readily available for establishment of new weather sections as the campaign advanced. In January 1943 plans were completed to establish a RAAF meteorological section at Milne Bay to provide a weather service for the Australian squadrons based in that area. Like the Port Moresby weather station, this office was used to give experience in local meteorological conditions and practices to incoming personnel so that relatively experienced men were available to staff the advanced operational bases that sprang up in the van of the Australian and American squadrons moving onwards. First of these was on Goodenough Island, where operations commenced early in June 1943. In August the network was extended to include a meteorological station at Kiriwina Island in the Trobriand group and from that time onward new island stations followed fast.

Steps had been taken in April 1943 to establish a group meteorological office for the Ninth Operational Group, which then controlled all sections in New Guinea. Functions of this position were defined by the Director of Meteorological Services on similar lines to those of the area meteorological officer at the North-Eastern Area headquarters, and the first occupant was Fl Lt (later Sqn Ldr) J. L. Williams, then officer in charge of the Port Moresby meteorological station. Fl Lt Williams held the position in a temporary capacity until the end of May when Sqn Ldr J. N. McRae arrived in New Guinea to take over, subsequently moving with group headquarters to Milne Bay and finally to Goodenough Island, where 9OG became established just before the close of the year.

An area meteorological officer, in Sqn Ldr Mackey—incidentally a member of the Australian weather party which had been posted to Malaya at the outset of the war with Japan—was already established at headquarters of the North-Western Area in Darwin, and action was taken in November 1943 to create a similar office in Western Area, where Sqn Ldr H. E. Banfield had his headquarters at Perth.

Close coordination and standardisation of meteorological services to Allied armed forces in the South-West Pacific area was of great and increasing importance at this stage and was furthered by the work of General Headquarters Committee K (Meteorological), which made many recommendations to the Combined Meteorological Committee (Washington) for final decision through the Commander in Chief. In April, Sqn Ldr W. A. Dwyer, D.Met.S. aviation superintendent, left Australia for Canada and the United States to represent the RAAF on the Combined Meteorological Committee (Washington) and to report upon weather services and development in the two countries. His primary purpose was to achieve coordination and standardisation of weather codes and procedures throughout the South-West Pacific, to which end he placed a considerable number of proposals before the committee. Amongst those approved, either wholly or in part, were the WAP-2 system of aircraft weather codes, a code cipher (UCO) system for communication of ground weather reports to aircraft, and the standardisation of pro formae for presentation of air-route forecasts. The committee also approved a proposal by Sqn Ldr Dwyer for a conference to coordinate weather services between the South-West Pacific and South-East Asia commands.

Bureau of Meteorology