While
the principal projects, programs and objectives of the Weather Bureau
in wartime are not fundamentally different from those in peace,
war naturally leads to a shift in emphasis with respect to details
of meteorological Activity, and the paramount interests of the military
departments obviously obscure or considerably alter some of the
peacetime principles of its organization. With this in mind, and
to provide for the greatest possible utilization of the far-flung
meteorological facilities of the National Meteorological Service
by the military in the prosecution of war, the
President
designated the Weather Bureau as a war agency. This was accomplished
by the issuance of Executive Order 8991, dated December 26, 1941,
under authority vested in the President by the Constitution and
statutes of the United States. It designated the Secretary of Commerce
as Coordinator, and the Chief of the Weather Bureau as Liaison Officer
of civil meteorological facilities and services to meet the requirements
of the Army and Navy and other vital defense activities for essential
and effective weather Information, and to protect the secrecy of
such information as was considered by the Secretary of War and the
Secretary of the Navy to be of value to the enemy.
The
Executive Order is here quoted in full:
By
virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and Statutes
of the United States, as President of the United States and as Commander-in-Chief
of the Army and Navy of the United States, and to further the successful
prosecution of the war, it is hereby ordered as follows:
1.
The Secretary of Commerce shall exercise his control and jurisdiction
over the issuance of weather reports and forecasts of the civil
weather service so as to meet to the best advantage such requirements
with respect thereto as the Secretary of War or the Secretary of
the Navy shall determine to be necessary for the successful prosecution
of the war.
2.
The Secretary of Commerce shall take such steps as may be necessary
to secure the coordination .of civil meteorological facilities and
services to meet the requirements of the Army and Navy and other
vital defense activities for essential and effective weather information,
and shall not disclose information which may be considered by the
Secretary of War or the Secretary of the Navy to be of value to
the enemy.
3.
The Chief of the Weather Bureau of the Department of Commerce shall
serve as liaison officer between the Secretary of Commerce and the
Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy for the purposes
of this order.
Readjustment
of Functions.--In accord with the directive of the
President, issued by the Director of the Bureau of the Budget under
date of September 23, 1941, to Heads of Departments, the Weather
Bureau put its house in order during the National Defense era by
effecting as many readjustments of its functions as was possible
within the limitations of appropriations in order to provide for
anticipated defense operations. Therefore, when war was declared
it had a readjusted organization on which to superimpose, by means
of supplemental appropriations and transfer of funds from the military
agencies, the special forecasting and other services designed to
facilitate artillery and aircraft tests and to serve Army (and Navy)
posts and bases, construction project , munitions plants, and the
Ferry Command; increase the number of upper-air observations to
aid military aviation; extend communication networks to serve Army
establishments whenever necessary; expand the Alaskan and Caribbean
weather services to meet the special military needs of those areas;
assemble and organize a staff of communication experts to provide
means for the transmission of weather information to the fighting
forces; and provide a staff of expert meteorological statisticians
to produce significant analyses of the weather and climates of domestic
and foreign areas of actual and potential military interest to the
United Nations forces.
Weather
Information as a Wartime Weapon,--The Weather Bureau is
among the civilian agencies of the Government that are immediately
effected by a major War. Modern communication and exchange of weather
data are world-wide in scope, and are basic factors in the tactics
and strategyof modern warfare. Weather, being unaffected in its
daily movements and developments by political boundaries, lends
importance to its source regions in allied, enemy, ane neutral countries.
Consequently, the first news of the outbreak of war is
coincident with blackouts on the world's weather maps and the establishment
of secret channels to continue the flow of weather information to
and from the theaters of war.
The
impact of War on the United States Weather Bureau is immediate and
serious if any of the belligerents are countries in North America
or are among the principal maritime and air transport countries
of the world. In that case the weather blackouts affect the weather
maps of North America or the surrounding oceans and threaten to
eliminate sources of information which are essential for the safety
of world commerce. Many countries, both neutral land and belligerent,
are therefore forced to choose among three possible actions: (1)
To do without the weather from the areas directly affected by the
war; (2) to deal with one or more of the belligerents and neutrals
and respect their demands governing secrecy of the reports; or (3)
to set up new and independent arrangements
of their own. There is a vast difference, of course, whether the
country concerned a actually plans the war and delivers the initial
attack or is drawn into the war against its wishes. In either case
the defenses of the homeland and its industries and commerce are
vital, and weather plays a very important part. In modern warfare,
especially as it was developed in World War II, the defense of a
country involves cooperation with other countries over a large area,
and knowledge of existing and prospective weather conditions in
the area becomes increasingly useful as defense preparations are
advanced.
Each
war brings new weapons, new methods of transportation and new instruments
of communication. Warfare, in all these phases, is affected by weather,
and sooner or later makes new demands on the meteorologist, necessitating
a change In methods of observations, communication, and forecasting
of weather in the war theaters. Not only does this apply to the
current weather situations but it means that the weather of the
past must be processed again and again to bring out in usable form
the information concerning significant elements which are related
to new techniques of war. The Spanish American War was the first
in which the United States was involved after the organization of
a national weather service. That war required the establishment
of a weather service in the West Indies and the Caribbean area.
World War I created demands for specially processed information
bearing on ballistics and brought about an important program of
sounding the upper air by pilot ballon. The requirements of World
War 11 were different. They are the subject of this report. The
next war may extend our war weather horizon into new and unexplored
fields. There is a vast region of the upper atmosphere about which
we know very little, and the same can be said of the lower atmosphere
in some world areas, especially in the polar regions and large parts
of Asia.
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