RAAF Appointments

Organisational Conferences

D.Met.S., after investigation, reported the problem to the then Chief of Air Staff (Sir Charles Barnett). Corrective action was promptly taken and, on 17 June 1941, Group Captain Warren represented Australia at a combined communications and meteorological conference at Batavia, NEI, attended also by service representatives of Great Britain, New Zealand, United States of America, Federated Malay States and NEI, to determine a uniform series of meteorological codes and ciphers for introduction by Allied services in the event of the Pacific becoming an active theatre of war. These codes and ciphers, which became known as the ANDUS system covered a triple purpose. They enabled uniform services for Allied Naval, Army and Air Forces by all meteorological services of the area without regard to nationality or language. Preparation for the system was delegated to the Australian meteorological service. Sqn Ldr (later Wing Commander) H. E. Camm, then officer in charge of the forecasting section at headquarters of the Directorate of Meteorological Services in Melbourne, was given the actual task of producing the cipher tables, which were given the short titles of ANDUSYN and ANDUSMET. Sqn Ldr Camm worked in association with the Australian Navy Office and the RAAF Director of Signals in their production. The ANDUS cipher systems were accepted by all Allied authorities in the region and went into operation throughout the region on 15 November 1941.

'Frosterley' (No 2 Drummond Street, Carlton, Victoria), Headquarters of the RAAF Meteorological Service, and of the Bureau of Meteorology from 1908 until 1974, pictured here during World War II

Design of a local COMETSYN code, an Australian internal weather ciphering medium, had meanwhile permitted resumption of the regional meteorological broadcasts.

Bureau of Meteorology