The Information Dominance Corps
OPNAVINST 5300.12
Dated: 6 October 2009
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ONE - MAN AEROLOGICAL UNITS AT SEA

This is another in our series of essays depicting variations in duty assignments of Aerographers and Mates.

Surely this duty was one of the most challenging faced by personnel in our rating.  Rather than working as part of a team, the one-man unit placed the AerM in a decidedly foreign environment.  In most cases his ability to perform aerological duties and contribute to the operational efficiency of his ship was dependent on a single officer, the ship’s Navigator.  There was and is a wide variation in any Navigator’s sensitivity to weather conditions.  The AerM was normally assigned to N Division upon reporting aboard.  He worked for the Navigator.

Our fleet was augmented by many new naval vessels from 1942 onward.  The decision to assign an Aerographer to each surface ship was made in the Aerology Branch of the Bureau of Aeronautics, where Captain Howard Orville USN was in charge.  In March, 1942, the Warrant Officer specialty of Aerographer was created and the enlisted rating then became “Mate.”  The number of AerM trainees was markedly increased.  To avoid a bottleneck in training already extant, the Bureau of Aeronautics granted authority to selected air stations to advance to AerM3c a small number of seamen who had not attended Primary Aerographer School .  The wartime tempo increased and many decisions were necessarily expedited.

One of the first Aerographer’s Mates to be ordered to a one-man billet was AerM3c Norman Bender, USN.  Norm became an Aerographer striker on NAS Jacksonville, after attending Aviation Ordnanceman School in Norfolk .  He was ordered to NAS Lakehurst for instruction at the Primary Aerographer School , as required for advancement to Aerog3c.  He turned out to be a trailblazer by then, transferring to sea in new construction from NAS Lakehurst in early 1943.  His new home was USS MONTPELIER (CL-57), built by Camden Shipyard across the Delaware River from Philadelphia . 

When Norm reported aboard she was fitting out in Philadelphia Navy Yard after launching in December, 1942.

There is a major difference between being the first AerM assigned to a ship and relieving an AerM who has been aboard for a while.  Norm faced all the unique challenges of new construction, ranging from typical shipyard confusion and pandemonium to eventual commissioning of his ship at the end of 1943.  He was fortunate to have a Navigator who could envision the advantages of on-board aerological services.  By the time MONTPELIER was commissioned and ready for shakedown.  Norm had his N Division billeting squared away along with many of his aerological equipment problems.  He had identified a working space and rigged it as his office, solved the helium stowage problem, cumshawed a typewriter, and was already proving his usefulness to the Navigator and others.

USS MONTPELIER had a four-plane aviation division and this added to Norm’s responsibilities, mostly for providing true surface wind values for underway aircraft launching and recovery.  However, when the ship arrived in the Pacific war zone there was an overriding need for current ballistic winds, since she was frequently part of a bombardment force.  Norm was able to obtain PIBAL observations using volunteers to assist.  Later he cooperated with the Gunnery Officer and was able to task the after director to track balloons and thus expeditiously compute ballistic winds.

There was no Monthly Aerological Record (log) maintained due to the pressures of Norm’s 24-hour responsibilities at sea.  Neither was there any requirement to compute ballistic densities, although MONTPELIER had been provisioned with an aerograph.  When MONTPELIER was at anchor it was possible to make occasional aerograph flights and work up ballistic densities, but that was experimental.  Norm was able to school the ship’s Quartermasters in cloud observations, improving accuracy in the Ship’s Log; and that action was facilitated when he voluntarily went on the QM bridge watch list.

Norm was commended for writing a paper which described duties of a one-man aerological unit afloat.  That paper was shotgunned through the fleet for guidance.  He terminated his two years aboard MONTPELIER in 1944 as AerM1c, having served in some of the hottest naval engagements in the southwest Pacific.

Another cruiser sailor was Jack Bullington.  He served in a one-man billet in USS PORTLAND (CA-33).  In his case, in 1943 he relieved an AerM who wanted to come ashore in Pearl Harbor , so they swapped billets.  Jack did not experience the traumatic fitting out, commissioning and shakedown periods that Norm Bender did.  But PORTLAND was very active throughout the war, providing Norm and Jack with parallel experiences.  Jack was fortunate to serve under a skipper who understood weather very well and consistently valued the aerological support rendered.  Captain T.G.W. “Tex” Settle USN was a world champion free balloon pilot and co-holder of a high altitude balloon record.  When PORTLAND was

decommissioned and Jack came ashore at the end of the war he had advanced to CAerM.

Mike Kalles was a prime example of a young, inexperienced AG3 going to sea directly from Primary Aerographer School .  He relieved another AerM in USNS BUTNER (TAP-113) in 1956 and remained aboard until 1959.  Somehow the Navy lost his personnel records when Seavey-Shorevey was effected.  During those years BUTNER served the North Atlantic route between New York-Southampton-Bremerhaven, transporting troops and families.  Mike made forty-four Atlantic crossings in BUTNER.

After being aboard BUTNER for many voyages and advancing to AG2, Mike was designated Leading Quartermaster in N Division.

To further illustrate this one-man aspect of the Aerographer’s Mate duty assignments I talked to former AerM1c Alex Campbell USN.  He was not in a one-man billet but instead spent two of the war years on rotating battleship staffs.  As the staff moved from ship to ship, Alex worked with many different Aerographer’s Mates who were serving in one-man billets.  AerM1c Joe Cooper served in USS NEW JERSEY (BB-62) and, during the time that ComFifthFleet and staff were embarked he worked with that team.  AerM1c “Gizmo” Kennedy was in USS TEXAS (BB-35) during 1942-43.  AerM1c Dedrick in USS NEW YORK (BB-34).  Of the half dozen BBs that Alex served in for varying periods of time, his favorite was USS IOWA (BB-61).

Submitted by CDR Don Cruse USN RET NWSA Historian

THE NAVY'S 1st AIRCRAFT CARRIER

Eugene Ely takes his Curtiss pusher airplane off from the deck of USS Birmingham on 14 November 1910 .  It was the First airplane takeoff from a warship. He flew for two miles before landing on a Willoughby Spit beach.

We are really looking at "THE OLD NAVY" in these photos.  Would not say it made me homesick but when I was a swab jockey I served in some old buckets.  One was USS TEXAS (BB-35), USS RANGER (CV-4) and USS STOCKTON (DD-73).  In TEXAS we slept in hammocks.  When we transferred we lashed our bucket into our seabag & hammock because these ships had no showers.  I still had my bucket when I reported to NAS Lakehurst in late 1940 after we turned STOCKTON over to the RN in Halifax .  We still had to scrub our own clothes so the bucket was handy.

CDR Don Cruse USN RET

HURRICANE HUNTERS BIOPSY STORMS

TO GAIN KNOWLEDGE

By Ann Keeton, Wall Street Journal, September 12, 2007

New technology on the ground and in the air is giving meteorologists better tools to measure the size and strength of hurricanes before they hit land, potentially saving lives and millions of dollars.

Among the innovations is one that allows measurement of surface weather conditions from 10,000 feet up.  And one result of the data has been the ability to better determine how much of a coastal area should undertake a costly evacuation.

The improvements are even more important because weather experts have forecast a long-term cycle for hurricane seasons, which run from June through

November, to include more storms than usual for the next 20 years or so, due to warmer ocean temperatures.

This year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the government's weather research arm, expects between seven and nine hurricanes to form in areas that could affect the U.S.  That includes between three and five major storms of category 3 or higher, with winds of 111 to 130 miles per hour and a storm surge pushing waves six to eight feet higher than normal.

There is no way to tell where the storms may originate. All hurricanes start in the ocean as small tropical storms. Once hurricanes have been identified, special aircraft in the U.S. Air Force's Hurricane Hunters squadron fly into the storm to collect real-time information.  New equipment in the past two years has increased the accuracy of data by 30%, said Lt. Col. Roy Deatherage, a meteorologist in the Air Force Reserve Command 403rd Wing at Keesler Air Force Base in Mississippi .

The biggest improvement came just before Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, when the Air Force unit upgraded its fleet of aircraft to Lockheed Martin Corp.'s C-130J planes.  Lt. Col. Deatherage said the aircraft are faster and safer in turbulent air than their predecessors.  The C-130J cockpit can also accommodate a wider range of technical devices.

Lt. Col. Deatherage flew into the eye of Katrina just as the storm hit land.

"We were able to collect a higher resolution of data than ever before," he said.  "We were looking at the same data, but sampling more often as we flew."  Data are sent by satellite to NOAA's Hurricane Center .

Lt. Col. Deatherage and other pilots fly missions at an altitude of 10,000 feet.  It takes about two hours to cover an X pattern, radiating out about 100 miles on each side of the storm's center.  In 2005, a busy hurricane year, the Hurricane Hunters flew that mission 229 times.

Public affairs officer Maj. Chad Gibson said the Hurricane Hunters' missions add details to satellite pictures collected by NOAA.

"It's like a medical procedure, where the satellite photo is the X-ray, and then we do a biopsy," he said.

This year, the data grew more detailed with the addition of the Stepped-Frequency Microwave Radiometer, made by ProSensing, a private systems-engineering company in Amherst , Mass.

Nicknamed "the smurf," the radiometer was built for the U.S. Navy to measure ocean salinity.  It has since been redesigned to sense microwave radiation emitted from foam created on the ocean by winds at the surface. Computers then calculate the wind speeds based on the levels of microwave radiation.  In the past, computer models could only estimate surface conditions.

Last week, the SFMR closely followed Hurricane Felix, tracking its movement and strength.  When Hurricane Dean last month crossed Mexico 's Yucatan Peninsula , scientists for the first time were able to measure the weakening of a hurricane after it crosses over land.

Even though Dean kept moving north through the Gulf of Mexico, the storm was too weak to pose a threat to the U.S. , the scientists determined.

"The SFMR allows us to see the structure of the hurricane 36 hours before landfall," Lt. Col. Deatherage

said.  Although he was surprised by its accuracy, he said the technology does have limitations.  For example, it doesn't work in shallow water.

Additional diagnostic tools are on the way.  The Air Force is considering adding an infrared system currently being fitted on C-130J reconnaissance planes for the U.S. Coast Guard.

 AFGAN WARS

Laddies, A bit of history from my Great Grand Father's time in Afghanistan, I send you all this to remind you that the War Lords have not changed since those days, there has been a number of Afghan Wars since then and nothing changed, one War Lord taking over for another.  from the late Reg Kitchener, Brit Sgt Major Ret, Police Sgt"Bobbie" ret , 3rd generation Career soldier all of whom were stationed in Afghanistan , India & surrounding countries.  First enlisted late WW2.

With the failure of the Burnes mission (1837), the governor general of India, Lord Auckland, ordered an invasion of Afghanistan, with the object of restoring shah Shuja (also Shoja), who had ruled Afghanistan from 1803 to 1809.  From the point of the view of the British, the First Anglo-Afghan War (often called " Auckland 's Folly") was an unmitigated disaster.  The war demonstrated the ease of overrunning Afghanistan and the difficulty of holding it.

An army of British and Indian troops set out from the Punjab in December 1838 and by late March 1839 had reached Quetta .  By the end of April the British had taken Qandahar without a battle. In July, after a two-month delay in Qandahar, the British attacked the fortress of Ghazni, overlooking a plain that leads to India , and achieved a decisive victory over the troops of Dost Mohammad, which were led by one of his sons.  The Afghans were amazed at the taking of fortified Ghazni, and Dost Mohammad found his support melting away. The Afghan ruler took his few loyal followers and fled across the passes to Bamian, and ultimately to Bukhara , where he was arrested, and in August 1839 Shuja was enthroned again in Kabul after a hiatus of almost 30 years. Some British troops returned to India , but it soon became clear that Shuja's rule could only be maintained by the presence of British forces.  Garrisons were established in Jalalabad, Ghazni, Kalat-iGhilzai (Qalat), Qandahar , and at the passes to Bamian.

Omens of disaster for the British abounded.  Opposition to the British-imposed rule of Shuja began as soon as he assumed the throne, and the power of his government did not extend beyond the areas controlled by the force of British arms.

Dost Mohammad escaped from prison in Bukhara and returned to Afghanistan to lead his followers against the British and their Afghan protege.  In a battle at Parwan on November 2, 1840 , Dost Mohammad had the upper hand, but the next day he surrendered to the British in Kabul .  He was deported to India with the greater part of his family.  Sir William Macnaghten, one of the principal architects of the British invasion, wrote to Auckland two months later, urging good treatment for the deposed Afghan leader.

Shuja did not succeed in garnering the support of the Afghan chiefs on his own, and the British could not, or would not, sustain their subsidies. When the cash payments to tribal chiefs were curtailed in 1841, there was a major revolt by the Ghilzai.

By October 1841 disaffected Afghan tribes were flocking to the support of Dost Mohammad's son, Muhammad Akbar, in Bamian. Barnes was murdered in November 1841, and a few days later the commissariat fell into the hands of the Afghans. Macnaghten, having tried first to bribe and then to negotiate with the tribal leaders, was killed at a meeting with the tribal chiefs in December. On January 1, 1842 , the British in Kabul and a number of Afghan chiefs reached an agreement that provided for the safe exodus of the entire British garrison and its dependents from Afghanistan . Unfortunately, the British would not wait for an Afghan escort to be assembled, and the Ghilzai and allied tribes had not been among the 18 chiefs who had signed the agreement. On January 6 the precipitate retreat by some 4,500 British and Indian troops with 12,000 camp followers began and, as they struggled through the snow-bound passes, the British were attacked by Ghilzai warriors. Although a Dr. W. Brydon is usually cited as the only survivor of the march to Jalalabad (out of more than 15,000 who undertook the retreat), in fact a few more survived as prisoners and hostages. Shuja remained in power only a few months and was assassinated in April 1842.

The destruction of the British garrison prompted brutal retaliation by the British against the Afghans and touched off yet another power struggle among potential rulers of Afghanistan . In the fall of 1842 British forces from Qandahar and Peshawar entered Kabul long enough to rescue the British prisoners and burn the great bazaar. All that remained of the British occupation of Afghanistan was a ruined market and thousands of dead (one estimate puts the total killed at 20,000). Although the foreign invasion did give the Afghan tribes a temporary sense of unity they had lacked before, the accompanying loss of life (one estimate puts the total killed at 25,000) and property was followed by a bitterness and resentment of foreign influence that lasted well into the twentieth century and may have accounted for much of the backlash against the modernization attempts of later Afghan monarchs.

WRITTEN BY A WORLD WAR II SAILOR

 Come gather round me lads and I'll tell you a thing or two,
about the way we ran the Navy in nineteen forty two .
When wooden ships and iron men were barely out of sight,
I am going to give you some facts just to set the record right.

We wore the ole bell bottoms, with a flat hat on our head, and
we always hit the sack at night.  We never "went to bed."
Our uniforms were worn ashore, and we were mighty proud.
Never thought of wearing civvies, in fact they were not allowed.

What happened to the KiYi brush, and the old salt-water bath?
Holy stoning decks at night - cause you stirred old Bosn's wrath!
We always had our gedunk stand and lots of pogey bait.
And it always took a hitch or two, just to make a rate.

In your seabag all your skivvies, were neatly stopped and rolled.
And the blankets on your sack had better have a three-inch fold.
Your little ditty bag ……it's hard to believe just how much it held,
and you wouldn't go ashore with pants that hadn't been spiked and belled.  

We had scullery maids and succotash and good old S.O.S.
And when you felt like topping off - you headed for the mess.
Oh we had our belly robbers - but there weren't too many gripes.
For the deck apes were never hungry and there were no starving snipes.

Now you never hear of Davey Jones, Shellbacks Or Polliwogs,
and you never splice the mainbrace to receive your daily grog.
Now you never have to dog a watch or stand the main event.
You even tie your lines today - - back in my time they were bent.

We were all two-fisted drinkers and no one thought you sinned,
if you staggered back aboard your ship, three sheets to the wind.
And with just a couple hours of sleep you regained your usual luster.
bright eyed and bushy tailed - you still made morning muster.

Rocks and shoals have long since gone, and now it's U.C.M.J.
THEN the old man handled everything if you should go astray.
Now they steer the ships with dials, and I wouldn't be surprised,
if some day they sailed the damned things - from the beach computerized.

So when my earthly hitch is over, and the good Lord picks the best,
I'll walk right up to HIM and say, "Sir, I have but one request
Let me sail the seas of Heaven in a coat of Navy blue.
Like I did so long ago on earth - way back in 1942.

Submitted by CDR Don Cruse USN RET