The most important weather forecast in history
In memory of my father Hans who, in 1944, took part in the liberation of Europe with the Royal Engineers in the Italian Campaign. –Benny Peiser
1) The Weather Forecast That Saved D-Day
Christopher Klein
Years of detailed planning went into the D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944, but success hinged on one element that no military commander could control—the weather. In the days leading up to the invasion, Allied meteorologists delivered the most important weather forecast in history. If they got it wrong the Allies might have lost tens of thousands of men and World War II might have been lost forever.
In contrast to the bright morning about to dawn over Portsmouth, England, on June 4, 1944, gloom settled over the Allied commanders gathered inside Southwick House at 4:15 a.m. Years of preparation had been invested in the invasion of Normandy, but now, just hours before the launch of D-Day operations, came the voice of Group Captain James Stagg urging a last-minute delay. As Operation Overlord’s chief meteorological officer, the lanky Brit was hardly a battlefield commander, but the ultimate fate of D-Day now rested in his decision-making.
The disappointed commanders knew that the list of potential invasion dates were only a precious few because of the need for a full moon to illuminate obstacles and landing places for gliders and for a low tide at dawn to expose the elaborate underwater defenses installed by the Germans. June 5, chosen by Allied Supreme Commander Dwight Eisenhower to be D-Day, was the first date in a narrow three-day window with the necessary astronomical conditions. The massive Normandy landings, however, also required optimal weather conditions. High winds and rough seas could capsize landing craft and sabotage the amphibious assault; wet weather could bog down the army and thick cloud cover could obscure the necessary air support.
The critical, but unenviable task of predicting the English Channel’s notoriously fickle weather fell to a team of forecasters from the Royal Navy, British Meteorological Office and U.S. Strategic and Tactical Air Force, and as D-Day approached, storm clouds brewed inside the meteorological office. Observations from Newfoundland taken on May 29 reported changing conditions that might arrive by the proposed invasion date. Based on their knowledge of English Channel weather and observations, the British forecasters predicted the stormy weather would indeed arrive on June 5. The American meteorologists, relying on a differing forecasting method based on historic weather maps, instead believed that a wedge of high pressure would deflect the advancing storm front and provide clear, sunny skies over the English Channel.
Stagg, the only meteorologist allowed direct contact with Eisenhower, had to make the final call. Although the sky was clear and wind negligible in the early hours of June 4, Stagg believed foul weather was only hours away. He sided with his fellow British colleagues and recommended a postponement. Knowing that the weather held the potential to be an even fiercer foe than the Nazis, a reluctant Eisenhower agreed in the early hours of June 4 to delay D-Day by 24 hours.
On the other side of the English Channel, German forecasters also predicted the stormy conditions that indeed rolled in as Stagg and his fellow Brits had feared. The Luftwaffe’s chief meteorologist, however, went further in reporting that rough seas and gale-force winds were unlikely to weaken until mid-June. Armed with that forecast, Nazi commanders thought it impossible that an Allied invasion was imminent, and many left their coastal defenses to participate in nearby war games. German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel even returned home to personally present a pair of Parisian shoes to his wife as a birthday present.
German Luftwaffe meteorologists, however, relied on less sophisticated data and models than their Allied counterparts, says John Ross, author of “The Forecast for D-Day: And the Weatherman behind Ike’s Greatest Gamble.” “The Allies had a much more robust network of weather stations in Canada, Greenland and Iceland; of weather ships and weather flights over the North Atlantic and observations by secret agreement from weather stations in the neutral Republic of Ireland,” he says. Those weather stations, in particular one at a post office at Blacksod Point in the far west of Ireland, proved crucial in detecting the arrival of a lull in the storms that Stagg and his colleagues believed would allow for an invasion on June 6. As rain and high winds lashed Portsmouth on the night of June 4, Stagg informed Eisenhower of the forecast for a temporary break. With the next available date for an invasion nearly two weeks away, the Allies risked losing the element of surprise if they waited. In spite of the pelting rain and howling winds outside, Eisenhower placed his faith in his forecasters and gave the go-ahead for D-Day.
The weather during the initial hours of D-Day was still not ideal. Thick clouds resulted in Allied bombs and paratroopers landing miles off target. Rough seas caused landing craft to capsize and mortar shells to land off the mark. By noon, however, the weather had cleared and Stagg’s forecast had been validated. The Germans had been caught by surprise, and the tide of World War II began to turn.
Weeks later, Stagg sent Eisenhower a memo noting that had D-Day been pushed to later in June, the Allies would have encountered the worst weather in the English Channel in two decades. “I thank the Gods of War we went when we did,” Eisenhower scribbled on the report.
He could also have been thankful for Stagg overruling the advice of the American meteorologists who wanted to go on June 5 as planned, which Ross says would have been a disaster. “The weather over Normandy contained too much cloud cover for Ike’s greatest strategic asset, the Allied air forces, to effectively protect the landings from German armor, artillery and infantry reserves. Winds were too strong for the deployment of paratroopers to secure bridges and crossroads inland from the beaches thus preventing German reinforcement of coastal positions. Waves were too high for landing craft to put soldiers and supplies ashore. The key element of surprise—location and time—would have been lost, and the conquest of western Europe could well have taken another year.”
2) D-Day: The Sceptical Meteorologists Who Surprised The Nazis By Saying ‘Yes’ To June 6
Simon Pearson
The outcome of D-Day was decided not on the beaches of Normandy, but by weather systems in the mid-Atlantic and the ability of rival teams of meteorologists to interpret the forces of nature. The Americans were confident in long-range five-day forecasts. The British were sceptical, believing they could forecast only two days ahead at best. The teams clashed repeatedly.
The outcome of D-Day was decided not on the beaches of Normandy, but by weather systems in the mid-Atlantic and the ability of rival teams of meteorologists to interpret the forces of nature.
As unfavourable conditions developed during that early summer 70 years ago, three teams of meteorologists produced reports for the Allied commander, General Dwight D Eisenhower, who laid down the conditions necessary for invasion — and his preferred date: June 5. Across the Channel, a single team of Germans watched the weather.
One of the men who took part in this great drama was Lawrence Hogben, a New Zealand naval officer, who, as a Rhodes Scholar, studied mathematics at New College, Oxford and trained as a meteorologist with the Royal Navy. Today, he lives in a care home in southern France, the country he helped to liberate and, even at the age of 98, retains vivid memories of events in June 1944.
Hogben had already distinguished himself as a naval officer before he was asked to work with Geoffrey Wolfe, a Cambridge-educated engineer, in the Admiralty team forecasting the D-Day weather.
As an instructor lieutenant, responsible for training, intelligence and meteorology on HMS Sheffield, he had witnessed several major naval actions: the sinking of the German battleship Bismark in May 1941; the Battle of the Barents Sea — when Sheffield engaged the German pocket battleships Admiral Hipper and Lutzow in the Arctic in December 1942; and Operation Torch, the invasion of French North Africa a year later.
Decorated for bravery and promoted instructor lieutenant-commander, he had also developed his skills as a weatherman. “OnSheffield, I was making forecasts every day from the data coming in and from the state of the sea,” he says.
Hogben and Wolfe were one of two British teams. The second, put forward by the Met Office, consisted of Charles Douglas, the chief forecaster who was known for his photographic memory of meteorological events, and Sverre Pettersen, a Norwegian. The third team was American, with Irving Krick and Benny Holzman, two well-known weathermen from the California Institute of Technology. Each day, the three teams reported their findings to Group Captain James Stagg, a Scot who had been superintendent of the Kew Gardens observatory in 1939. He briefed Eisenhower.
For operational reasons, the American commander needed a full moon, a low tide, little cloud cover and light winds so that troops in landing craft could get ashore quickly, the gliders and parachutists could operate efficiently, and the Allied fighters and bombers could find their targets.
The forecast was not good. Indeed, climatic data suggested the odds against the forecasters finding the right conditions was 13-1 in June 1944. The Americans were confident in long-range five-day forecasts. The British were sceptical, believing they could forecast only two days ahead at best. The teams clashed repeatedly.
According to William Bryant Logan, author of Air: The Restless Shaper, they succeeded, “not because of the brilliant work of any solitary forecaster, but because a group of forecasters imitated the weather. They jostled, yelled, scribbled, and cast malevolent looks at one another. They fought it out and voted. And in the end, they were just right enough.”
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A shedload of “What ifs” here.
My father was in uniform then – indeed, my mother was, too!
What if – well maybe,
but history happened.
There were some very brave individuals – on each side.
I favour leaving this at this.
Auto.
“””””…..milodonharlani says:
June 6, 2014 at 11:24 am
george e. smith says:
June 6, 2014 at 11:10 am
We suffered over 2000 casualties on Omaha Beach, not fatalities. Besides our heavy losses on Omaha, casualties were also high among the two US airborne divisions, over 2000 casualities, IIRC. Utah, as noted, got off easy on June 6, with fewer than 200 dead (but dozens missing). However, it suffered disastrously in training.
Iwo was Marines, not GIs. Marines don’t like to be lumped in with “doggies”, although they sometimes are……”””””
Well, as I said at the outset, I wasn’t there. So I can only report what I can read. And at no time did I intentionally post anything about “casualties.”
The source I most recall, said 2500 US at Omaha and 4,000 total allied , and that report was fatalities.
As for Army, Marines, Airmen, US Navy, Coast Guard, Merchant Marine, I can’t say it ever occurred to me to ask one of them what they were.
Playing baseball on our school footie field, or sitting on the lap of one of them in a tent watching Errol Flynn swashbuckling movies, it really didn’t seem important to me at the time. I can’t even tell you the name of the chap whose lap I sat on. Well his last name was Jim, but I’m not allowed to tell you what I called him; they said that was his name.
Didn’t really matter to me, whether he came by helicopter or shanks’ pony; just glad he was there, and hoped he made it home.
“””””…..milodonharlani says:
June 6, 2014 at 2:52 pm
george e. smith says:
June 6, 2014 at 2:47 pm
Il-2 flew low & slow. Although armored against ground fire, it would have been dead meat for US & UK fighters. Without fighter cover, it was practically defenseless, despite rear gunner, …..”””””
Thought you were talking about a B-17.
Stuka was low and slow too.
I didn’t say it was any air superiority machine; just that they could build a lot of them.
RAF also had plenty of low and slows too; and tailgunners. Fairey Aviation Works comes to mind.
And the Bismark never succeeded in downing even one Fairey Swordfish, with all their fire power.
I guess you use what you’ve got.
Actually, that weather forecast almost proved to be the doom of D-Day. Had D-Day not gone that day, the next possible favorable date would have been in early July. On D-Day, bombers could not see the coastal defenses due to cloud cover, their bombs overshot the German defenses and landed well beyond them leaving them mostly unscathed. Shortly after the invasion, Normandy experienced one of its wettest spells in modern history. The hedgerows were turned into quagmires. On June 19th, one of the worst storms in living memory struck the beachhead and nearly completely wiped out logistics operations setting operations back for weeks.
Had the invasion been delayed a month, they would have landed in calm sunny weather with effective air support with a long sunny dry spell before them. Overall, they would have likely defeated the Germans quicker and sustained fewer casualties had the operation been delayed until July 7-9 which was the next “window” for an invasion if they didn’t go on June 6. They would not have lost gear swamped in heavy surf, pre-invasion bombardment would have been more effective, and there would not have been the massive losses of ammunition, supplies, and the loss of an entire debarkation port as happened on June 19.
That “good” weather forecast for June 6 was very nearly the doom of the invasion.
george e. smith says:
June 6, 2014 at 3:21 pm
Estimates of Allied dead on D-Day range from 2500 to 4000 (as per your recollection), with casualties from under 9000 to 10,000 (until recently usual figure was 9000 casualties & 3000 killed). But fewer than 2500 were KIA on Omaha, although that bloody beach did suffer a high killed to wounded ratio. That’s close to the number of casualties suffered by the two US airborne divisions & the total US KIA or died of wounds.
A buddy of mine works at the US D-Day Memorial & participated in the study cited below, from the British D-Day Museum. The US Memorial however cites a different number, however:
http://www.dday.org/
“The D-Day cost was high with more than 9,000 Allied soldiers killed or wounded as the march across Europe to defeat Hitler began.”
The British D-Day Musuem says this:
“The Allied casualties figures for D-Day have generally been estimated at 10,000, including 2,500 dead. Broken down by nationality, the usual D-Day casualty figures are approximately 2,700 British, 946 Canadians, and 6,603 Americans. However recent painstaking research by the US National D-Day Memorial Foundation has achieved a more accurate – and much higher – figure for the Allied personnel who were killed on D-Day. They have recorded the names of individual Allied personnel killed on 6 June 1944 in Operation Overlord, and so far they have verified 2,499 American D-Day fatalities and 1,914 from the other Allied nations, a total of 4,413 dead (much higher than the traditional figure of 2,500 dead). Further research may mean that these numbers will increase slightly in future. The details of this research will in due course be available on the Foundation’s website at http://www.dday.org. This new research means that the casualty figures given for individual units in the next few paragraphs are no doubt inaccurate, and hopefully more accurate figures will one day be calculated.
“Casualties on the British beaches were roughly 1,000 on Gold Beach and the same number on Sword Beach. The remainder of the British losses were amongst the airborne troops: some 600 were killed or wounded, and 600 more were missing; 100 glider pilots also became casualties. The losses of 3rd Canadian Division at Juno Beach have been given as 340 killed, 574 wounded and 47 taken prisoner.
“The breakdown of US casualties was 1,465 dead, 3,184 wounded, 1,928 missing and 26 captured. Of the total US figure, 2,499 casualties were from the US airborne troops (238 of them being deaths). The casualties at Utah Beach were relatively light: 197, including 60 missing. However, the US 1st and 29th Divisions together suffered around 2,000 casualties at Omaha Beach.”
Working backwards: 1465 – (238 AB + 197 Utah) = 1030 for Omaha, without the missing (some of whom were killed). I’ll grant that sounds too few. But as a portion of total dead of 2500 to 4000, maybe not.
In any case, glad you have fond memories of GIs in England.
[And add the associated air campaigns above Normandy and its deception areas, and all of the merchant sailors lost getting the material to England … .mod]
phlogiston says:
June 6, 2014 at 2:36 pm
Michael Palmer on June 6, 2014 at 9:03 am
…
Had D-day failed, the one real difference in outcome would have been that most of continental Europe would have come under Russian control. D-day was mostly about reigning in Russia, not about defeating Germany.
That made it even more important for civilization and democracy that DDay did not fail, and makes its heros doubly so.
==========================
I reacted to statements in the original post and in comments.
But I didn’t intend to distract from the valor of all involved with D-Day, nor the importance of their mission. As you guys said, the invasion of western Europe limited the territorial gains of the Soviets. In addition, our making significant penetration into western Germany enabled us to capture rocketeers and nuclear physicists, which limited the Soviets gain of knowledge, knowledge that was critical in the Cold War.
When I was young, I often heard that we won the space race because our Germans were better than the Soviets’ Germans.
george e. smith says:
June 6, 2014 at 3:34 pm
Yes, echoing Rumsfeld.
Stuka continued to be used in the East after it became obsolete in the West. See Hans-Ulrich Rudel.
Sadly, many British a/c were, as you note, also archaic at the start of the war, & others designed too vulnerable for their mission later in it, witness the Typhoon. Swordfish is a wonderful, loveable a/c, even if it did give the IJN the idea for Pearl Harbor. But the Lanc, Mosquie & Spit make up for a multitude of sins.
“””””……milodonharlani says:
June 6, 2014 at 4:28 pm
george e. smith says:
June 6, 2014 at 3:34 pm
Yes, echoing Rumsfeld……”””””
Well the definitive book on the sinking of Bismark, shows that the success of the Swordfish, from Ark Royal, was almost entirely due to their low and slow weakness.
The Bismark fire control people completely misread how damned slow the Fairey Swordfish was, as they came in for their apparently suicidal torpedo attacks, and as the planes approached, they closed down their timed fuze ranges too quickly, with the result that their shells went off well in front of the approaching planes, so not a one got hit. I believe at least one got lost and didn’t find its way back to Ark Royal, so it went in the drink.
The bad part of the Bismark story, was that Sheffield had to interrupt its rescue of the Bismark crew, and take off to avoid a U-boat, that got called into the area, by another U-boat that had already spent its last torpedo sinking some convoy ship, so just had to sit and watch Bismark go down, and eventually most of her crew, left in the water, when Sheffield left.
As they say, war is hell.
And by the way, part of my E-mail handle, is Seafang. Typhoons were pretty rough on tanks. Still love that Napier Sabre sleeve valve engine.
As for the “What if Ike Told Patton to Take Berlin” Game:
Hmm. I have my prejudices about all this. The reason I say 5-1 is that is closer to what I think actual fighting strength was. US was extremely heavy on staff and a division was a burnt-out shell with 20% losses. The Soviets were “not so heavy” on staff. High on the combat side. Even the commissars led a rough life. Both sides very scrappy. But they have (much) experience on us and a much greater tolerance for losses. And fives times as many actual men in the actual field holding actual guns instead of pencils.
Speaking of tanks, we shipped them a number of Shermans, and yes, what they liked about them the most was the radios. Some of them made fine command tanks and at least one division was all-Sherman. Only one in ten Soviet medium tanks had radios. The Germans had them in optics, too, but the Germans were better at that than we were, as well.
At the end, they were heavy in T34/85s, which will eat any model Sherman for lunch. Not even to mention the KV and JS series. Ironically, the Sovs became better in their tactical deployment than the Germans who, for all their radios, had a bewildering tendency to lead with their tanks, even as late as Kursk.
I don’t think the Soviets would have had to win in the air, just defend adequately. I think they could have done it easily enough. They had been destroyed in 1941 and had been built up from scratch and had to survive at the wrong end of bad odds for over two long years. They damnwell knew how not to get wiped out, which is something we would have to do in order to have even a chance at winning. It’s very bad on the loss ratio, when your guys are mostly bailing out over enemy-held territory.
Besides, the Sovs had just beat a German Army that was much bigger (not to say better) than we were. What makes you think we could have taken on an opponent anywhere near that size? One which is far more okay with taking losses than we ever were. Vasily had been sent out east by then, but you still have the other three outstanding commanders (Zuk, Kon, and Rok) on hand. Matched up against Brad and Devers. And yes, I know about the terrain.
I don’t believe the idea was to actually fight the soviets at that point as much as Patton was complaining about stopping at the Elbe and not advancing farther even though the Russians had not yet reached Berlin. Eisenhower ordered a halt at the Elbe River on April 12, nearly a month before the Russians got to Berlin.
Weather… the hinge of history.
Props to the Greatest Generation!
Were ‘your Russians’ aware that they were allied to the Germans in the first years of the war and exchanged supplies with them?
Come to think of it, the Russians and the Germans were in bed from 1922. Beautiful friendship. They invented the Blitzkrieg together. But there is no love without betrayal. For that matter, Stalin would have sold them out in 1935 if the British had been willing to play ball.
There was at least one Estonian. Couple of Ukrainians, one of whom was a child in Kiev during the war. Her comment was, “German soldiers gave candy,” and I was forcibly reminded of von Kleist and his fate. So, yeah, that and worse. This was just before the breakup.
And one old staunch babushka, about 70 at the time, and Georgian, too, the de facto matriarch of the lot, came out with. “Stalin I miss. He give us order.” There was an outbreak of shocked whispering all around the room, as she stared them down defiantly.
Another old soldier, also a veteran of the Great War, told about how he was asleep in the desert and woke up to find a huge black snake curled up on his chest. He said he didn’t move a muscle for two hours. Then the sun came out and the snake slooooowly uncurled and went away. I asked him when this was. He said 1954. I asked where. He said Iran. (Iran?, Yes, Iran.) So I said weren’t you guys supposed to be out of there by that time? He just smiled.
I don’t believe the idea was to actually fight the soviets at that point as much as Patton was complaining about stopping at the Elbe and not advancing farther even though the Russians had not yet reached Berlin. Eisenhower ordered a halt at the Elbe River on April 12, nearly a month before the Russians got to Berlin.
Yes (in public), but he would have been just fine with a war. (His autobio is terribly frustrating — freakin’ travelogue, mostly.) And he was the best we had for what we needed to fight the Germans. Of all of them, even better than Brad, Patton understood that once you have gone to all the trouble to knock a foe down you must not on any account let him back on his feet. Zhukov operated much in the same fashion. But first you have to knock him down, and that’s what cost Zuk his greatest defeats (Mars and Seelowe).
But against the Russians, after day 3, I’ll put my chips on Brad.
When I was young, I often heard that we won the space race because our Germans were better than the Soviets’ Germans.
Von Braun was “helpful”.
milodonharlani says:
June 6, 2014 at 2:38 pm (Edit)
In another life, I was a Cold War Soviet Army analyst. My buddies were the boots & tracks on the ground covering the Gap & driving over German flower gardens on maneuvers.
I thought I caught a whif of postwar. And there you were, right at the schwerpunkt, at that. (Thank you for my freedom.)
That “good” weather forecast for June 6 was very nearly the doom of the invasion.
Hard to say. The Falaise encirclement was a huge windfall that would likely not have occurred had the situation been altered.
He says the Russians were extremely unfriendly and after delivery of their goods they were not allowed to stay in the city but encouraged to leave as soon as possible.
They were lucky. The Russians made not of few of them disappear. Murmansk was a hellish trip, and it was within air interdiction of Norway (shades of convoy PQ17, which ended the effort). Not to mention Tirpitz and Scharnhorst. In the end, the bulk of lend lease did not make it through until July 1943 when the Tehran route was opened. In a few months, a large portion of Soviet infantry became motorized.
“In the end, the bulk of lend lease did not make it through until July 1943 when the Tehran route was opened.”
The path through Iran is one of the most underrated factors in WWII in most of the common histories taught to the masses. With the Caucuses in flames, Iran turned out to be the source of oil that Russia needed to wage war. Now had we gone to war with Russia, that oil would have likely been cut off. But for what strategic reason would we want to conquer Russia? At most we would have likely just wanted them back to their pre-war border and out of eastern Europe but there would probably be no limiting it once it started. I believe we would have won a military confrontation eventually but I am not sure we would win the peace that followed. Things turned out ok, it just too another 50 years.
All in all a fine post and a fine series of comments and conjectures.
We have so many reasons to be thankful for all those who strove during the Second WW.
But isn’t it a pitiful commentary on humanity, or the lack thereof, that 100 million (in all of WWII) or so souls lost their life because of political and/or religious beliefs, or ethnic descent?
One wonders if we, as a species have really learned much from the history of such sacrifice.
Well, Maikop was toast. But they never made it to Baku (or even Grozny). I just think that by 1945 the Russian army was too big and too good for us to beat. I think they would have hit us for six if we’d tried.
Would Eisenhower trust the forecast from the Met today
evanmjones says:
June 6, 2014 at 1:53 pm
My son is in Russia currently. He works for an auxiliary of the American Embassy in the commissary. The fifth generation of our family in the grocery business for at least part of his life. The first of those generations were butchers in Russia. Part of our family did really well as butchers in America. Omaha Steaks. I’m just a poor relation though.
My son teaches Russians English in his spare time.
M Simon says:
June 7, 2014 at 12:15 am
My sincere thanks for you, your family, and your son’s service in getting me (yes, ME personally!) the daily food we need.
But, I must confess, I really hate eating and the energy and bother and effort it causes each day. 8<)
If I had my preference, I'd be able to eat once, and be done with it for the rest for the day/week/year/lifetime. Why waste time and effort doing something over and over again, only to need to eat again the next day? For no real gain! There has GOT to be a better way to do things. 8<)
When I was young, I often heard that we won the space race because our Germans were better than the Soviets’ Germans.
I recall hearing that as well. A LOT. I was just short of 18 when Kennedy made his “go to the moon” speech.
I just think that by 1945 the Russian army was too big and too good for us to beat. I think they would have hit us for six if we’d tried.
Maybe. But they were tired. As were the Western Allies. And we Americans and Brits and Aussies and the NZ boys had a war in the Pacific to deal with that was estimated to last another year. The Jews (mostly) of los Alamos probably shortened the war by 9 months and a million (estimated) casualties.
My dad was in that war. On a gasoline taker. The battle of Okinawa. Kamikazes. Fortunately Japanese strategy was to fight warships and not logistics. His ship AOG-27 Escatawpa.