First Flight into a Hurricane

On July 27th of 1943 a relatively weak hurricane, sustained winds elevated to 86 mph, made landfall near Galveston, Texas.  

Because the nation was in the middle of World War II, all ship communications in the Gulf of Mexico were silenced for fear of German U-Boat activity. This led to warnings being seriously delayed and Weather Bureau forecasters having little information to work with.

In the preceding months, WWII British pilots trained in instrument flying at nearby Bryan Field.  When the late arriving evacuation was finally ordered, many of the pilots balked at flying the frail aircraft in these conditions.  In order to prove the planes' ability the flight instructor, Colonel Joe Duckworth and his navigator Lieutenant Ralph O'Hair without official approval, flew into the hurricane as it came ashore.  

Ironically enough, after flying in conditions like that of "being tossed about like a stick in a dog's mouth," Duckworth guided his AT-6 "Texan" into the eye of the storm. O'Hair described the shape of the center like that of a leaning cone, and after flying back through the squalls to Bryan Field, O'Hair hopped out--his first and last flight into a hurricane--and the weather officer, Lieutenant William Jones-Burdick, made the second pass into the storm with Duckworth. Nothing was ever said about the sturdiness of the AT-6 again.

Soon after this event, reconnaissance flights were conducted infrequently at first, and then regularly as a Weather Reconnaissance squadron was formed in 1944. By 1946, the moniker "Hurricane Hunters" was used for the first time, and ever since that's what the Air Force Reserve 53rd Weather Squadron has been called.