SECRET DATA FROM SEA

Press, Volume LXXXI, Issue 24591, 13 June 1945, Page 5

SECRET DATA FROM SEA

WEATHER REPORTS TO GERMANS LONDON, May 20. A weather forecast of conditions round the British Isles was sent by radio daily to Germany throughout the war by secret submerged automatic meteorological stations which the Germans placed at strategic points in the Reporting this, the "Sunday Dispatch” says news of the invention was revealed with the lifting of Eire’s censorship. Stations ringed the British Isles—some were submerged in the Irish Sea—and sent out vital weather clues which assisted the Germans’ plan of air raids against Britain and U-boat attacks against Allied shipping. The stations were about 300 feet long. Moored on the ocean’s bed, they surfaced daily. Then an aerial would automatically appear from contraptions in the centre, and a message would go out. It is believed that U-boats serviced the stations—renewed batteries, and so on. One of these stations broke from its moorings near Slyne Head, 50 miles from Galway. Fishermen thought at first it was submarine, but, investigating, discovered it was something "new.” By trawler, they towed the station to Clifden fishing port, where the Irish army authorities took it over.