Bermuda’s history with Hurricane Hunters

Make text smaller Make text larger

Did you know the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, also known as the Hurricane Hunters, were once stationed in Bermuda?

This component of the 403rd Wing now located at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi is a one-of-a-kind organisation. In fact it’s the only operational unit in the world flying weather reconnaissance on a routine basis.

The mission of the Hurricane Hunters is to recruit, organise and train assigned personnel to perform aerial weather reconnaissance. They provide surveillance of tropical storms and hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico and the central Pacific Ocean for the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

Believe it or not, the origins date back to the 1940s and started as a bar room dare when two Army Air Corps pilots challenged each other to fly through a hurricane. On July 27, 1943, Major Joe Duckworth flew a propeller-driven, single-engine North American AT-6 “Texan” trainer into the eye of a hurricane. In fact he flew into the eye of that storm twice that day once with a navigator and again with a weather officer. These were generally considered to be the first airborne attempts to obtain data for use in plotting the position of a tropical cyclone as it approached land.

His pioneering efforts paved the way for further flights into tropical cyclones.

The 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron (WRS) was originally activated in 1944, as the 30th WRS at Gander, Newfoundland.

Its original mission was to fly weather tracks between North America and Allied Western Europe. Since that time, the Hurricane Hunters have had many designations, and called many airfields home, including Bermuda.

From Newfoundland, the squadron moved south to New Hampshire and then on to Florida. But on August 17, 1947 the Hurricane Hunters moved across the Atlantic to Kindley Field in Bermuda.

Even though they later relocated to Burtonwood Royal Air Force Station in England, and Dharan, Saudi Arabia, they returned to Berrmuda for a short time before heading home to the US for a few years.

Make text smaller Make text larger

Take Our Poll