The Weather and Chemical Warfare

Flying Officer Don Fifer and Flying Officer Steve Lloyd were the two RAAF Met. officers mostly concerned with chemical warfare in D.Met.S., the former being the first to serve with the special unit. They described how the Australian Field Experimental Station (AFES) was established in 1940–41 near Proserpine (Old) to study all aspects of defence against chemical warfare in the tropical environment. Initially, a pilot group was established under the general control of the Chemical Defence Board, a combined civil/military advisory body based in Melbourne. The initial group was housed at the University of Melbourne.

Figure 2 From left to right. Stuart Reavill of Porton Downs (chemist of UK Civil Service), two American Army scientists attached to the Australian Field Experimental Station and Flight Lieutenant Steve Lloyd taken on a boat somewhere in the Whitsunday Passage.

An offshoot of the AFES was established at Innisfail to investigate chemical warfare in tropical rainforest or jungle conditions. The rationale, according to Steve Lloyd, presumably was, that at some stage of the war, especially if the tide of events was running against them, the Japanese might resort to some sort of combat involving noxious and destructive liquids and gases, such as mustard gas.

Bureau of Meteorology