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This is Volume One of The Army Air Forces in World War II, titled Plans and Early Operations, January 1939 to August 1942, edited by Wesley Frank Craven and James Lea Cate. The University of Chicago Press first published it in 1948, and the Office of Air Force History reprinted it in 1983. The front matter explains how the AAF historical program was set up during the war. The index covers Pacific, Atlantic and European operations, and nothing in the text concerns unidentified aerial phenomena.
“The Wash”17 pages
A I R T R A N S P O R T A N D F E R R Y I N G essential to the normal operation of any air route. T h e need for a widespread network of weather stations through the North Atlantic was especially great. Weather phenomena in the area-icing, fogs, turbulence, and thunderstorms-are associated with the southward movement of polar air masses from the Arctic and the movement north of warm air from the tropics. When these two dissimilar masses of air meet, a "front" is formed and at this point occurs much of the weather so hazardous to flying. T h e principal job of the weather men of the north was to locate these fronts and to plot and forecast their movements, which were generally from west to east, in order to en- able pilots to know when to fly and when not to fly along a given route. Accuracy of forecasts depended on the experience of the weather observers and on the amount of data obtained. T h e latter in turn depended on the number of stations re~0rting.l'~ Between March and December 1941, the Army Air Forces had established the framework of a weather service from Maine to Ice- land, into which organization were drawn a number of Canadian and Danish stations. Weather and communications from Iceland into Brit- ain remained for some time the responsibility of the British. T h e first AAF weather station in the North Atlantic area was opened at Gander Lake in March 1941 to serve air defense units soon to be sent into Newfoundland.lZ6Thereafter, as new bases were established along the far northern ferrying route, weather and communications men moved in and set up their observation and radio facilities. T e n enlisted weather specialists accompanied the American advance task force into southern Greenland in July 1941. Six of them proceeded a t once to set up weather and radio facilities in a tent at BW-I. T h e other four and one communications specialist were transferred to the Coast Guard cutter Northland and voyaged up the east coast of Greenland to install new radio and meteorological equipment at a number of Danish stations scattered along the coast as far north as E~kirnonaes.~''T h e Danish stations became an integral and important link in the AAF weather network. T w o other American weather stations in Greenland were opened, at BW-8 on the west coast and at BLUIE E A S T z (BE-2) near Angmagssalik on the east coast during 1941.''' In September of that year, task forces were sent into north- ern Labrador and to Baffin Island to establish three weather stations a t points surveyed earlier by an Army and Navy group under Captain R o ~ s e v e l t . ~ * ~These were the three CRYSTAL stations, located in 345
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