INVASION WEATHER

Grey River Argus, 4 July 1944, Page 5

INVASION WEATHER

WORK OF METEOROLOGISTS. (Special to N.Z. Press Assn.) (Rec. 12.20.) LONDON, July 3. One key man in a job of the utmost responsibility in the invasion was an Aqcklander, Instructor Lieutenant Lawrence Hogben, D.S.C., as a meteorological officer. He had to forecast the weather for D Day. The meteorological officer on General Eisenhower’s staff took the combined forecasts of the Royal Navy, the Royal Air Force, and the U.S. Army Air Force experts, which were discussed at telephone conferences at which decisions preferably unanimous, had to be reached. Lieutenant Hogben was one of the naval officers taking part in these conferences. The forecasts dealt with wind, sea and swell, which particularly concerned the Navy, also with cloud, which particularly concerned the Air Forces. The decision to postpone D Dav for 24 hours resulted from this meteorologists’ conference, in which famous meteorologists, including American, Norwegian and British experts took part. The decision that the weather, after a 24hour delay, would be possible, if by no means perfect, was surely the biggest meteorologists ever had to make. As it proved, the event justified the decision. For some time before and after D Day, Lieutenant Hogben and other meteorological officers worked nineteen hours daily. In line with other branches of science affecting war, meteorology has made considerable strides under the impetus of the war, and the Admiralty uses techniques which have been introduced since the outbreak of the war. D Dav proved the accuracy of the forecasts now possible. Lieutenant Hogben, who is a mathematician, became in 1938 a Rhodes Scholar. He joined the Navy from Oxford as an instructor-Lieutenant.

He specialised in meteorology from the outset of the war. He. was at sea until February of last year, serving in H.M.S. “Sheffield” during the chase and destruction of the Bismarck and the bombardment of Genoa. He also took part in several Arctic convoys, one Malta convoy, also the North African invasion. He was awarded the D.S.C. early last year for his services in the Arctic waters. He _ was the first instructor officer to win this decoration. He transferred to the Royal New Zealand- Navy in 1942, and' was appointed Jo the Admiralty in Febru ary, 1943.