My dog, who is panicked by thunder was hiding in my office this New Years Eve. She has learned that my office, with no windows, mitigates the thunder claps. Winter thunderstorms are rare but it reminded me of my meteorological past. Back in 1955, I was fresh out of graduate school in meteorology as a 2nd lieutenant in the Air Force and assigned to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. In February of 1956, with only a few months of experience, I came to work one midnight shift.
Staff Sergeant Bob Boudreau, a superb forecaster on the prior shift, briefed me. “Lieutenant, I see a line of thunderstorms approaching us and I think they’re due to hit about 2am. Winds gusting as high as 60 knots from the northwest. I called Colonel Foreman and advised him. He didn’t believe me. He said John Facenda the news guy at WCAU Philadelphia said the weather was not too bad.” Bob then pointed to a series of recent reports of what appeared to be a line of severe storms that weren’t on the weather maps. “If those C-124s aren’t turned into the wind and tail stands not installed, they could be knocked over onto their tails doing tremendous damage. So I warned him. Here is the log entry that protects our asses.”
I was too green to contradict him. I followed the stations reporting each hour. Bob was right. At about 2:25am, thunderstorms hit. The planes were not prepared. For 15 minutes we were deluged with thunder, wind and rain. Some gusts were over 60 knots and two planes were knocked over on their tails. I checked the log to make sure we told him..
Sure enough, at about 6am, Colonel Foreman came charging into the weather station with an entourage of officers, with a particularly nasty attitude, trying to see if they could use weather as an act of God which damaged the planes. They scoured everything, harassed me, tried like hell, but couldn’t negate the almost perfect forecast Sgt. Boudreau had made and which he had ignored.
Years later in 1967, I was a salesman for IBM and was walking on 42nd street and spotted Colonel Foreman in civilian clothes. I stopped him. “Colonel Foreman?” I asked. “General Foreman, retired,” he answered. “Do I know you?” I told him I’m former Lieutenant Wallach, the weather forecaster in Dover when the planes were knocked over and I’ve always hoped I would be able to tell you what I thought of you. I told him with a few choice 4-letter words, leaving him a little stunned as I walked away content.
