The extraordinary story of the changing June weather of 1944 and its influence on Gen Dwight Eisenhower revolves around the heated arguments of six weathermen.
The allies narrowly avoided postponing D-Day by a fortnight to a date when the weathermen would have given the go-ahead and the result would have been utter defeat in storm-tossed seas. No detailed account of the forecasts has been given in the media before.
Previous accounts relied on the interpretation of James Stagg, a Meteorological Office man seconded to the RAF. But he merely reported to Eisenhower the analyses of three two-man teams of forecasters from the Met Office, the United States military and the Royal Navy.
Only the Navy men, Lawrence Hogben and Geoffrey Wolfe, survive. Dr Hogben said: "We six never agreed about anything except that Stagg was not a good meteorologist and that he was a bit of a glory hound." The six worked for months before D-Day, perfecting forecasting techniques many of which are still in use.
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