Glimpse of the RAAF Meteorological Service
Preface
Foreword
Introduction
Chapter 1: Growing Up
Early Australian Meteorologists
Early Days in the Bureau
Forecasters' Training Course
My Classmates
Reorganisation of the Bureau
Love and Marriage
Chapter 2: Port Moresby Before Pearl Harbour
Chapter 3: Port Moresby After Pearl Harbour
Chapter 4: Allied Air Force HQ and RAAF Command, Brisbane
Chapter 5: Japan Surrenders and We Are Demobilised
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Appendix 1: References
Appendix 2: Milestones
Appendix 3: Papers Published in Tropical Weather Research Bulletins
Appendix 4: Radiosonde Observations 1941–46
Index
Search
Help
Contact us
When Charles Kingsford-Smith and Charles Ulm flew their tri-motor Fokker across the Pacific from Los Angeles to Brisbane later in the same year, with navigator Lyon and radio-operator Warner as crew I, like every other Australian, was bursting with pride at the remarkable achievement of this flight. Their flying time was 83½ hours, entirely over the sea, with refuelling stops at Honolulu and Suva. Like many other young Australian boys and girls I had the ambition to be a pilot when I grew up. As a teenager I frequently cycled about 20km to Mascot airport to watch the early aircraft taking off and landing.
In those days there was no television to project visual images of what was happening. Indeed, in my earliest years, there were no radio broadcasts. Our awareness of these exciting events came from newspapers and magazines and from conversations in the family circle or with friends and acquaintances. Before long what we called wireless broadcasts carried news of the early aviators and we saw newsreels of Hinkler, Smithy and other aviators at the local 'picture show'.
At university I joined the Sydney University Regiment (SUR). Initially I was somewhat shocked by the ribald songs sung on route marches but soon discovered they helped me to ignore the pain of feet blistered by my new army boots which had not been 'worn in'. I enjoyed the camaraderie of life in the annual training camps; came to terms with the discipline, army food and eight-hole communal toilets; learned to fire and care for the Lee-Enfield .303 rifle and Lewis machine gun and rose to the dizzy rank of corporal. While in the SUR I applied to join the Citizen Air Force and was devastated when rejected when failing a blindfold balance test.
After graduation as BSc I made two attempts to find a job in meteorology. Failing in my first attempt, I found a position in the research laboratory of Amalgamated Wireless of Australia Ltd (AWA) in Ashfield, a suburb of Sydney. On my second attempt I was appointed Meteorological Assistant in the New South Wales (NSW) Divisional Office of the Bureau of Meteorology in November 1939. The grade of Meteorological Assistant had been created in a reorganisation of the Bureau in the 1930s to provide on-the-job training for potential meteorologists.
Organisations in Australian Science at Work - Amalgamated Wireless (Australasia) Ltd.
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© Online Edition Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre and Bureau of Meteorology 2001
Published by Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre, using the Web Academic Resource Publisher
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