Weather in the Allied Advance

These little publicised but invaluable groups were on many occasions the first, or only, representatives of the RAAF to take part in historic land battles of the island campaign. As components of LHQ Mobile Meteorological Squadron (AIF), trained and supplied by the Directorate of Meteorological Services, they were attached to headquarters of each Army division or corps, and in the last phases of the war six mobile meteorological flights were operating with Army forces between Borneo and the Solomons.

Generally, their job was to provide ballistic wind and temperature data for the artillery, forecasts of surf for the beachheads, predictions of flood and rain for the engineers, of sea for Army small craft and of cloud and visibility for kai-bombing (food dropping) or close support for the infantry. They were commanded by an officer of the RAAF Meteorological Service and formed of an interservice mingling of Air Force meteorological personnel and equipment with vehicles, weapons, wireless equipment, drivers and signals operators drawn from the Army.

As would be expected from the differences between Army and Air Force organisation, much of the work at headquarters section of each mobile meteorological flight differed considerably from that carried on in weather offices attached to RAAF units. For instance, special attention had to be given to the prediction of surf and tides for a wide variety of purposes. On one occasion the officer in charge of a mobile meteorological flight was called to the flagship of the task force commander to provide predictions which, on the basis of photographic interpretation, provided information for landing beaches—as to the exact landing places for various craft, depth of water under barge screws, whether or not it would be a dry landing for troops and vehicles and whether high tides would reach up to the fringe of beaches. As a routine, too, tidal predictions were used with forecasts of sea and surf in connection with the crossing of sand bars at river mouths, selection of barge routes, use of beaches as roads or as landing places for aircraft, salvage operations and the construction of such things as slipways. On frequent occasions, also, flight headquarters were called upon for a mass of statistical information required in military planning: such as the number of 'plane days' when it could be expected that weather would be suitable for supply dropping or close support by the Air Force, the chances that floods would prevent river crossings and the amount of rainfall and number of rain days along alternative strategical and supply routes.

Bureau of Meteorology