Chinese Meteorology During World War II

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fang-yu Liu
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
High Altitude ◽  
Air Force ◽  
Meteorological Data ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
The United States ◽  
Western China ◽  
Weather Data ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
World War

Meteorology and military activities in China were closely interrelated during World War II. When the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937, the Nationalist government, under ferocious assault by the Japanese military, withdrew deep into the Chinese interior. Meteorological research organizations and the air force also relocated to Sichuan, the latter setting up weather stations in the southwest and the northwest and reorganizing the armed forces’ meteorological intelligence system while the former made use of the resulting meteorological data to research various weather phenomena in western China, thereby shifting the focus of meteorology in China away from the coastal regions. However, by the start of World War II, aviation had already become an important means of waging war, and high-altitude weather data was highly sought after as military intelligence. Consequently, after instigating the war, Japan extended its meteorological stations in northwest China, engaged in high-altitude surveying and observation, and created an information system between the Japanese home territory and colonies. Japanese analysis of the resulting weather data maintained the safety of flight routes and was used for formulating military strategy. The Chinese government, in contrast, having recently relocated and with a weak air force, lacked the power to expand research on aeronautical meteorology during the initial phase of the war. It was not until after becoming allied with the United States in December 1941 that the government was able, with American technical support, to begin expanding meteorological observation posts and conducting high-altitude surveying and observation. Moreover, the inauguration of flights over the aerial supply route known as the Hump resulted in the discovery of the jet stream over the towering mountain ranges of southwestern China. World War II opened up the Chinese interior for meteorological research and, as a result of military applications, brought about greater understanding of high-altitude meteorology.

Wettertrupp Haudegen: the last German Arctic weather station of World War II. Part 1

Polar Record ◽  
1986 ◽  
Vol 23 (143) ◽  
pp. 143-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Barr
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Meteorological Data ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Weather Data ◽  
North Coast ◽  
World War ◽  
The North ◽  
German Armed Forces ◽  
Weather Stations ◽  
German Navy

ABSTRACTDuring World War II the German Navy, trying to compensate for the loss of meteorological data from stations in Greenland, Iceland and other areas of the northwestern Atlantic Ocean, established automatic weather stations, weather ships and manned weather stations in a zone stretching from Labrador to Zemlya Frantsa-Iosifa. In summer 1944 one of the last of the manned stations (code-named Haudegen) was established on Svalbard at Wordiebukta, Rijpfjorden, Nordaustlandet. A party of 11, led by geographer Dr Wilhelm Dege, collected and transmitted weather data from 14 September 1944 to 5 September 1945; the party also explored and mapped the ice-free corridor extending south across Nordaustlandet to the head of Wahlenbergfjorden and much of the north coast from Kapp Loven east to Finn Malmgrenfjorden. After the German surrender in May 1945 the men of Haudegen found themselves apparently forgotten by Allied authorities in Norway, and began preparing for a second winter. They surrendered ultimately to the captain of the Norwegian sealer Blaasel on 4 September 1945, and were thus the last members of the German armed forces to surrender at the end of World War II.

The Romance of the Dogfight: A Cautionary Tale for Historians

Prospects ◽  
1992 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 105-135
Author(s):  
Thomas Cripps
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
The United States ◽  
Living Room ◽  
Cautionary Tale ◽  
World War ◽  
Photographic Images ◽  
American Television ◽  
The Core

By the end of 1991, the United States had not quite completed the restoration of the prestige of its armed forces. The occasion was the triumph of American arms as part of a United Nations exercise intended to restore the territorial integrity of the sheikdom of Kuwait, which had been violated by its truculent neighbor, Iraq. Curiously, photography was at the core of the adventure. For decades, World War II had been endlessly refought on American television screens, a stream of visual nostalgia for “the good war” (as Studs Terkel had named it) made possible by archival photographic images of a quite high order. But the image of victorious Americans against Axis heavies had been sullied by the Vietnam War, “the living room war” that had suffered a terribly bad press at least in part as a result of incessant, bloody, and finally fruitless combat that appeared as daily images on the nation's TV screens.

scholarly journals Pacific Brides: US Forces and Interracial Marriage during the Pacific War

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela Wanhalla ◽  
Erica Buxton
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Air Force ◽  
Pacific Islands ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
Racial Ideology ◽  
Pacific War ◽  
World War ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
European Theatre

Between 1942 and 1945, over two million servicemen occupied the southern Pacific theatre, the majority of them Americans in service with the Marines, Army, Navy and Air Force.  When the United States entered World War II in December 1941, they 'swept in a mighty deluge' doubling, sometimes tripling the populations of the Pacific Islands.  Their short but intense period of occupation in the South Pacific had far reaching consequences.  Not only did they dramatically alter the economies and environments of the islands, they also brought with them a set of ideas about race and intimacy encapsulated in legal codes, as well as social practices, which were applied to the organization of their own forces, and to the local populations.  American racial ideology also informed military regulations governing overseas marriages involving US forces, most notably inhibiting African American men's marital opportunities in the European theatre.

scholarly journals Military Optometry from World War I to the Present

2021 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-8
Author(s):  
W. Howard McAlister ◽  
Jeffrey L. Weaver ◽  
Jerry D. Davis ◽  
Jeffrey A. Newsom
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
World War I ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Military ◽  
World War ◽  
Eye Health ◽  
The Military ◽  
Good Vision

Optometry has made significant contributions to the United States military for over a century. Assuring good vision and eye health of soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines is critical to maximizing the military functions necessary to achieve victory. There was little organization or recognition of the profession in World War I, but optometrists were essential in achieving the mission. Recognition of the profession of optometry was still limited in World War II but it was improving, especially with commissioning as officers occurring in the Navy. Through the Korean and Vietnam Wars, optometry grew in stature and strength with all services eventually commissioning all optometrists, and Army optometrists were assigned to combat divisions. Continuing through the more recent conflicts in the middle east, the profession has continued to make an impact and has become an essential part of the armed forces of the United States. Doctors of optometry are now an integral part of the Department of Defense. The nation cannot field an effective fighting force today without the dedicated performance of these officers.

High-Altitude Daylight Precision Bombing in World War II

2019 ◽  
pp. 195-224
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
High Altitude ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
Air Power ◽  
Air War ◽  
Strategic Bombing ◽  
Harsh Reality

This concluding chapter examines US air war planning in World War II and evaluates overall American strategic bombing effectiveness: how HADPB theory held up to the reality of combat. After sketching out the early air war in Europe leading up to the entry of the United States, the chapter considers several aspects of the role American strategic bombing played during World War II, including the Combined Bomber Offensive (CBO), and evaluates how well the underlying assumptions of HADPB withstood the harsh reality of war. Finally, the chapter assesses how air power contributed overall to the Allied victory in Europe and analyzes the USAAF experience with HADPB against Japan.

Who Should Serve: Pre-World War II Planning for Selective Service

1970 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 379-404
Author(s):  
Albert A. Blum ◽  
J. Douglas Smyth
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
Service System ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
Selective Service ◽  
Selective Service System ◽  
The World

ONE of the more perplexing problems facing the United States in the twentieth century has been that of selecting fairly which citizens shall serve in the armed forces. Today controversy surrounds the application of the Selective Service System to them raising of troops for the Vietnam War. Thus far, however, the hostilities in Vietnam have not posed one difficulty for the Selective Service System that existed during World War II, namely, the necessity of granting substantial numbers of industrial and occupational deferments, except insofar as educational deferments are a form of industrial ones. Such deferments have grown more important during the world wars of the twentieth century as nations engaged in full-scale hostilities have been forced to rely heavily on them in order to maintain the industrial and economic strength of the nation.

Strategic Air Power

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Gerald Hughes
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
World War I ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
Air Power ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Strategic Goals ◽  
Aerial Platforms ◽  
Terror Bombing

Strategic air power is one of the means by which a military strategy employs aerial platforms to bypass the battlefield to achieve decisive political results in conflict. Most obviously, this has involved the coercion of an enemy nation-state by seeking to destroy its economic ability to wage war (as opposed to eliminating its armed forces). In Clauzwitzian terms, this represents a fundamental shift in identifying the enemy’s “center of gravity.” Debates over whether air power can achieve strategic goals date from the very first applications of it. The use of strategic air power requires systematic organization (e.g., RAF Bomber Command; the US Strategic Air Command) and, in addition to the use of strategic bomber aircraft, can be used in conjunction with missiles or tactical aircraft against targets selected to diminish the war-making capacity of the enemy. One of the aims for using strategic air power is enemy demoralization—that is, the racking up of punishment to the extent that the will of the enemy to resist is broken. The theory of strategic heavy bombing began to be developed during the aftermath of World War I. By the time of World War II, opponents of strategic air power made frequent reference to “terror bombing” as shorthand for its use. Of course, this term is dismissed by proponents of the use of strategic air power for the manner in which it delineates between other aspects of war (often equally unpleasant) and the targeting of civilians/war-making capacity. The use of strategic air power has been limited since World War II for a number of reasons. Not least among these is the relative scarcity of major wars as well as the inability of the vast majority of modern nation-states to devote sufficient resources to seek any decision in conflict via strategic air power. The United States is a notable exception here and it employed strategic air power in Vietnam in 1972, against Iraq in 1991 and 2003, and in Kosovo in 1999.

Chris Marker

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Jacobs ◽  
Sofie Verdoodt
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Air Force ◽  
United States Air Force ◽  
The United States ◽  
Marguerite Duras ◽  
World War ◽  
German Occupation ◽  
Alain Resnais ◽  
History Of ◽  
Chris Marker

Chris Marker is a pseudonym of Christian François Bouche-Villeneuve (b. 1921, Neuilly-sur-Seine, France–d. 2012, Paris, France), a French director, screenwriter, photographer, editor, writer, and multimedia artist. A major figure in the history of both experimental and documentary film, Marker turned out to be a mythic artist, who is always elusive about his past—even his place of birth is highly disputed (Ulan Bator, Mongolia, and Belleville, Paris compete with Neuilly-sur-Seine). In addition, Marker was known to refuse interviews and not allow photographs to be taken of him (though these claims are not entirely accurate). After studying philosophy prior to World War II, an involvement in the French Resistance during the German occupation, and having joined the United States Air Force as a paratrooper, Marker emerged as an intellectual, journalist, writer, and photographer in Paris in the 1940s. Already he showed a particular interest in filmmaking and he eventually made his debut as a filmmaker in 1952 with a documentary of the Helsinki Olympic Games. Soon after, he collaborated with Alain Resnais on Les Statues meurent aussi—both Marker and Resnais became key members (next to Agnès Varda, Jean Rouch, and Marguerite Duras) of the so-called Rive Gauche group. From the 1950s onward, Marker made seminal documentary essay films such as Dimanche à Pékin, Lettre de Sibérie, and Le Joli Mai. In 1962, he became known internationally for the short La Jetée (The Pier), which consists of still photographs. After his involvement in collective and radical filmmaking for SLON and ISKRA in the period 1967–1974, Marker made Sans Soleil, his best-known and most widely seen essay film that combines documentary and fiction. Already interested in the interactions between various media from the beginning of his career, Marker also developed into a leading video and multimedia artist beginning in the 1980s.

LAWRENCE RICKARD WAGER (1904–1965): A DISTINGUISHED GEOLOGIST WHO HELPED TO PIONEER AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHIC INTERPRETATION FOR ALLIED FORCES IN WORLD WAR II

2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-73
Author(s):  
EDWARD P. F. ROSE
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Air Force ◽  
Standard Operating Procedure ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Second Phase ◽  
World War ◽  
Skaergaard Intrusion ◽  
Royal Air Force ◽  
The University

ABSTRACT ‘Bill’ Wager, after undergraduate and postgraduate studies at the University of Cambridge, became a lecturer at the University of Reading in southern England in 1929. He was granted leave in the 1930s to participate in lengthy expeditions that explored the geology of Greenland, an island largely within the Arctic Circle. With friends made on those expeditions, he became in June 1940 an early recruit to the Photographic Development Unit of the Royal Air Force that pioneered the development of aerial photographic interpretation for British armed forces. He was quickly appointed to lead a ‘shift’ of interpreters. The unit moved in 1941 from Wembley in London to Danesfield House in Buckinghamshire, known as Royal Air Force Medmenham, to become the Central Interpretation Unit for Allied forces—a ‘secret’ military intelligence unit that contributed significantly to Allied victory in World War II. There Wager led one of three ‘shifts’ that carried out the ‘Second Phase’ studies in a three-phase programme of interpretation that became a standard operating procedure. Promoted in 1941 to the rank of squadron leader in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, he was given command of all ‘Second Phase’ work. Sent with a detachment of photographic interpreters to the Soviet Union in 1942, he was officially ‘mentioned in a Despatch’ on return to England. By the end of 1943 the Central Interpretation Unit had developed into a large organization with an experienced staff, so Wager was allowed to leave Medmenham in order to become Professor of Geology in the University of Durham. He resigned his commission in July 1944. Appointed Professor of Geology in the University of Oxford in 1950, he died prematurely from a heart attack in 1965, best remembered for his work on the igneous rocks of the Skaergaard intrusion in Greenland and an attempt to climb Mount Everest in 1933.

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