Weather radio country
The Land Weather Radio was an automatic weather station that was used by the Navy during the Second World War to determine meteorological data . Between 1942 and 1944, the naval weather service set up a total of fifteen such weather radios (WFL).
Basics
From the weather situation in the Arctic, knowledge about the expected weather development in Europe can be derived. Therefore, the acquisition of meteorological data in this area was a prerequisite for the operational planning of the German Air Force and the Navy during World War II . For this purpose, the Wehrmacht installed several automatic weather radio stations (WFL) between 1942 and 1945 - mostly on islands in the Arctic Ocean and in the Northern European Sea .
Determine and transmit weather data automatically
First, the determination of the weather data in the North Atlantic during the Second World War was carried out by submarines and weather ships , but the increasing threat from enemy air and naval forces led to the development of safer alternatives. In January 1942 the first weather buoys were deployed by the Navy.
Buoys and toads
These WFS buoys (See Weather Radio) weighed one and a half tons , were ten meters long and carried an antenna that was just as long. They were anchored in two to four kilometers of water. At certain intervals, the WFS automatically triggered their appearance, radioed their data and then dived down again. Their dimensions were based on the length and diameter of the torpedo tubes of the submarines from which they were brought to the spot. A further development was the air force's automatic weather detection station, which had the cover name “toad” and could record air pressure , humidity and temperature . In May 1942 the first "toad" was set up on Svalbard. The parallel development of the Kriegsmarine bore the less fanciful name "Wetterfunkgerät Land", for which the abbreviation WFL became common. The WFL were larger and heavier than the Luftwaffe model, which was transported by airplanes to the respective operational area of the "Toad".
Structure of the WFL
The over five meter long antenna of the Land weather radio rested on three legs, two of which had steel cylinders at the end - so-called transmitter pots. These pots were one meter high and 50 centimeters in diameter. A total of ten such pots belonged to a WFS, which also contained the batteries necessary for the energy supply. The dimensions of the pots of the WFL were designed so that they could be accommodated in the torpedo tubes of the German submarines. The third leg of the antenna, in the upper third of which was a thermometer , was connected to a surveying mast not even half as high, the top of which rotated an anemometer and a wind vane . Four times a day, the radio transmitted an encrypted report of the collected data via shortwave. A WFL had a service life of four to six months due to its autonomous energy supply - but some also worked significantly longer.
Navy weather radios in the Arctic
 
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Automatic weather stations on Svalbard and Bear Island, 1942 and 1943 |
For reasons of secrecy, the first Land weather radio was given the number 21. With this, the marine weather service continued to count the 20 weather buoys used so far. For the further numbering of the WFL this count was retained from now on. The transport, as well as the construction of the stations, was carried out under strict security measures. The crew only found out more details about the purpose of the technical devices invited and the tasks of the scientists who had boarded them at sea. In addition to the components of the WFL, the submarines commissioned with the transport also had other rubber dinghies with outboard motors and scout equipment on board. The devices and equipment were stored in the torpedo tubes or in special external transport containers - so-called upper deck rooms. The total of fifteen weather radios that the Wehrmacht set up in the Arctic during the Second World War also received mostly male first names as cover names:
- Gustav , WFL 21 was set up on September 7, 1942 on Svalbard as a replacement for the Knospe weather station , which was evacuated in autumn 1942
- Edwin , WFL 22 was set up on December 2, 1942 on Bear Island , the weather station was replaced on April 18, 1943 by Edwin II (WFL 23), which was brought to Bear Island by the weather ship WBS 2
- Robert , WFL 24 was brought to Bear Island by U 629 on July 9, 1943 to replace Edwin II , which at that time was still operational and was dismantled
- Gerhard , WFL 25 was of U 703 in summer 1943 to Novaya Zemlya transported and set up there on 22 August, of this remote Weather Service squad turned sixteen hours later by U 601 picked up and after Hammerfest brought
- Kurt , WFL 26 wasbrought to North Americaby U 537 and set up there on October 23, 1943 on the Labrador Peninsula as part of the only military operation on the German side on North American soil. Due to the long distance, "Kurt" was used by a long-range U -Boat of the type IX C brought in place, normally the smaller boats of the submarine class VII were used for the transport
- Dietrich , WFL 27 was transported by U 355 and set up on Bäreninsel on September 7, 1943
- Christian , WFL 29 was transported by U 713 and set up on Bäreninsel on December 6, 1943,
- Hermann , WFL 34 was set up on the Bear Island on June 17, 1944, WFL 30 was transported by U 737 , the location was, just like "Christian", "Dietrich" and "Robert", south of Nordhamna Bay
- Edwin III , WFL 33 was established on June 30, 1944 on Svalbard
- Herbert , WFL 30 was supposed to be set up on the Labrador, but U 867 , which was in charge of the transport, was sunk on the approach.
- Walter , WFL 31 was brought by U 992 to Jan Mayen in autumn 1944 and installed there on September 25th
- Erich , WFL 32 was initially to be set up on Franz-Josef-Land , but the plan was abandoned due to considerable ice accumulation, the weather radio was instead brought to Novaya Zemlya by U 387 as a replacement for "Erich"
- Wilhelm , WFL 36 was on 11 November 1944, the crew of U 1163 on Magerøya set
- Landjäger , WFL 35, was established in Åland on November 22, 1944
End of the Wehrmacht's automatic weather radio
At the end of 1944, the Navy stopped installing automatic weather stations. However, the WFS buoys should still be deployed. As planned, a buoy should be anchored at sea every month because of the much shorter operating time. In early 1945 U 880 was loaded with a buoy and left Kiel on January 11th . It was the last time a WFS buoy was deployed. The company was canceled due to machine damage.
On March 9, 1945, a Norwegian reconnaissance team set out from the center of the island of Jan Mayen in a motorboat to circumnavigate the northern part of the island, Nord-Jan . Three days later, the three Norwegians discovered the WFL 31 weather radio, code-named Walter, well hidden in the rubble near a refuge that had apparently been devastated by the Germans. Fearing that the site would be mined, the Norwegians did not approach the equipment, but cut some of the wires that connected the barrels to each other and to the transmitter mast. After a week the squad returned to the radio station and reported the find. On March 27, 1945, Walter was recovered by the crew of the Norwegian coast guard ship Namsos and brought to Reykjavik .
Of the two weather radios WFL 29 and WFL 34, which were set up in the north of Bear Island, one was dismantled at the end of August 1945 by a Norwegian weather team. and brought to Tromsø . It is not known whether it was Christian or Hermann , nor is it certain what happened to the other WFL.
It is also unclear what happened to WFL 32, which radioed under the code name Erich von Novaya Zemlya. Except for a report from 1959 in which members of a Russian station found a weather station on a reconnaissance march, but left it in place, nothing more has been known about Erich's fate .
Under the code name Edwin III , the WFL 33 broadcast weather data from North Spitsbergen up to the late summer of 1944. However, the contact was broken off in September, so that the members of the Haudegen weather team deployed there saw no need to visit the WFL. In 1958 the station was visited by the later Willy Brandt Prize winner Nils Morten Udgaard. The Norwegian journalist found WFL 33 destroyed - no cause could be determined. Almost thirty years later, the remains were salvaged and restored. Today Edwin III is part of the permanent exhibition of the Forsvarsmuseet in Oslo .
Since the Wehrmacht carried out command operations on the North Cape until the spring of 1945, it can be assumed that the WFL 36 built there with the code name Wilhelm broadcast its weather reports reliably up to this point in time and that no verification was necessary. When the Norwegian armed forces searched the fjords towards the end of the war, Wilhelm was also found and dismantled. The ultimate whereabouts of WFL 36 is not certain, but since three sets of temperature / pressure and wind measuring heads from German WFL are kept in the Meteorologisk Institutt in Oslo, it can be assumed that one of these sets belonged to Wilhelm .
The WFL 35 with the code name Landjäger is considered to be the most durable of the German weather radios. It was on the Skerry Fästorna between the Finnish and the Gulf of Bothnia . The station was discovered on April 19, 1945 by two hunters who were on their way to Föglö by boat to hunt birds there. The two of them examined the equipment and then reported their find to the Finnish authorities, who sent a pilot boat to Fästorna. The WFL was dismantled and handed over to the Soviet control commissioner of the Ålands Islands in Mariehamn , who had to decide on all military matters in the region since the armistice between the USSR and Finland .
See also
Individual evidence
- ^ Wilhelm Dege: War north of 80: The last German Arctic Weather Stations of Wordl War II. University of Calgary Press, ISBN 1-55238-110-2 , p. 104.
- ↑ Rupert Holzapfel : German Polar Research 1940/45 (PDF; 1.6 MB). In: Polar Research. 21, No. 2, 1951, p. 95.
- ↑ "Compression of the weather reporting network through automatic weather radios" , in Jürgen Rohwer : Chronik des Maritime War , online on the website of the WLB Stuttgart
literature
- Franz Selinger: From “Nanok” to “Eismitte”. Meteorological ventures in the Arctic 1940–1945 . Convent, Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-934613-12-8 .
- Details on technology and use