Appendix 2 lists significant dates relating to my experiences in the Bureau of Meteorology and the RAAF Meteorological Service from 1939 to 1946, and other background dates in the backdrop of general history. These historical milestones fall into three categories—dates relating to my personal history; dates of events in the history of the RAAF Meteorological Service, in the general history of the RAAF and in the history of the Bureau of Meteorology; and dates of other relevant events before and during the war in the South-west Pacific. This means that Appendix 2 is a melange of domestic and family affairs, wartime experiences, the history of meteorology in Australia and significant dates in the overall military and political scene.

The inclusion of some earlier prewar dates may appear irrelevant. These milestones have been included because the state of meteorology in 1939 was influenced by the efforts of colonial meteorologists of the previous century and by the creation of a Commonwealth Bureau of Meteorology. Similarly, Japanese military activity in Asia in the early 1900s contributed to the speed of the Japanese advance in the early years of the war in the South-west Pacific.

These reminiscences contain only a very small section of the history of the RAAF Meteorological Service. Other members of that Service made their own contributions. many much more significant than mine. We worked in small meteorological sections scattered over the vast Australian continent and in Malaya and the islands of the South-west Pacific. Although widely separated we developed a special identity and sense of belonging which persists to the present day.

Bureau of Meteorology