“I have seen the hurricane-swept sea on many occasions, but it never fails to impress me in exactly the same way. It would be sheer turmoil, like a furious blizzard. While experiencing the jarring turbulence, the heat and drumming of torrential rain which seeps in by the gallon and tastes salty, the inside of a hurricane can be like a bad dream. Like having been swallowed by an epileptic whale, or going over Niagara Falls in a telephone booth.” On a less serious note but illustrative of the unexpected, there is the tale of the Navy crew and the hot water. They took off in a Privateer to fly into the center of a hurricane, each member of the crew having been assigned certain specific duties, as is always the case on these missions. The radar operator, among other jobs, was given the coffee detail. After a considerable period of moderate to heavy turbulence, with heavy rain leaking into the plane until everybody was thoroughly soaked, they broke into the clear in the eye of the hurricane, about twenty-five miles in diameter. The weather officer was busy with the coding of his latest observation, the radio operator was sending two messages that had accumulated, and the navigator was figuring the position of the eye and computing a double drift for wind. The co-pilot had the controls and was flying around the eye, preparatory to a descent as soon as the coffee had gone around. The pilot called for coffee. The radar man dragged out two jugs, both still hot, and began to pour. He threw the first cupful under his seat and poured one from the other jug. Then he saw that he had brought two jugs of hot water and no coffee. “What the heck!” exclaimed the weather officer. “Why, you poor ——!” The navigator’s words were scathing. He said that, according to the Bible, Noah was tossed overboard for less reason. From the very beginning of reconnaissance, these missions have been co-ordinated according to instructions issued by a trio who serve on the Joint Chiefs of Staff and also on the Air Co-ordinating Committee. Today the men are Brigadier General Thomas Moorman of the Air Force, Captain J. C. S. McKillip of the Navy, and Dr. Francis W. Reichelderfer, Chief of the Weather Bureau. There have been no serious accidents on the Atlantic side when planes actually were in hurricanes and there was no confusion in assigning planes until September, 1947. The men on the Committee at that time were Brigadier General Donald Yates and Captain H. T. Orville, in addition to Dr. Reichelderfer. They co-ordinated many operations in addition to hurricane reconnaissance and all had had long experience in aviation. Dr. Reichelderfer was formerly in charge of weather operations in the Navy, after long experience at sea and in the air. He was weather officer for Hindenberg on his flight around the world in a dirigible.