Weather Station Kurt

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Weather Station Kurt, officially Wetter-Funkgerät Land-26, was a weather station erected by a German U-boat crew in northern Labrador, Newfoundland in 1943. The installation of Weather Station Kurt was the only armed German military operation on land in North America during the Second World War.

Weather in the Northern Hemisphere predominantly moves from west to east. This gave the Allies an important advantage since they could predict the weather far more accurately than the Germans. On September 18, 1943 U-537 was sent from Kiel, Germany with orders to resolve this problem. The submarine was loaded with a mobile weather station, named WFL-26, nicknamed "Kurt." The station, manufactured by Siemens, had an array of measuring instruments and a powerful transmitter. It was designed to be fully automated. Also on board the submarine were meteorologist Professor Kurt Sommermeyer and two assistants.

On October 22 the submarine arrived at Martin Bay in isolated northern Labrador. After waiting for fog to obscure them from air patrols, the Germans disembarked and spent the next four hours installing the station. The station was camouflaged and marked as belonging to the "Canadian Weather Service." However, the station only broadcast for a few days before falling silent. A second U-Boat was sent to do repairs and replace the batteries, but was sunk by the allies in the northern Atlantic.

The station was forgotten for many years until the late 1970s, when a retired Siemens engineer named Franz Selinger who was writing a history, went through Sommermeyer's papers and learned of the station's existence. He contacted Canadian Department of National Defence historian W.A.B. Douglas, who went with a team in 1981 and found the station still largely intact. Weather Station Kurt was brought to Ottawa and is now on display at the Canadian War Museum.

[edit] References

• 'U Boats Against Canada', Michael L. Hadley, McGill-Queens Press, 1990.