Wartime Developments in Applied Climatology

Abstract

WORLD WAR II was the greatest “battle of wits” of all time. To an extent never before approached, it was a war of technician versus technician. Particularly is this true of the technical use of weather. Weather has always been a potent weapon in warfare. History tells us that battles and sometimes even wars have been lost because weather aligned itself with the enemy. In this war, the intelligent exploitation of some single weather factor often supplied the slight technical advantage which meant the difference between success or failure of an operation or campaign. But the attainment of that technical advantage meant continuous and detailed long-range planning which in turn meant that it was impossible for the military planner to wait for a short-range forecast before incorporating the important weather factor into his plans. Weather planning on an equally long-range basis was the only answer and, to the meteorologist, that meant climatology. But not the climatology he knew in 1941.