Weather Station Kurt

Weather Station Kurt (Wetter-Funkgerät Land-26) was an automatic weather station, erected by a German U-boat crew of the Kriegsmarine in northern Labrador, Dominion of Newfoundland, in October 1943. Installing the equipment for the station was the only known armed German military operation on land in North America (outside of Greenland) during the Second World War. After the war, it was forgotten until its rediscovery in 1977.

Background

In the northern hemisphere, weather systems in temperate climates predominantly move from west to east. This gave the Allies an important advantage. The Allied network of weather stations in North America, Greenland, and Iceland allowed the Allies to make more accurate weather forecasts than the Germans.

German meteorologists used weather reports sent by U-boats and weather ships, such as ''Lauenburg'', operating in the North Atlantic. They also had reports from clandestine weather stations in remote parts of the Arctic and readings collected over the Atlantic by specially equipped weather aircraft.

However, the ships and clandestine stations were easily captured by the Allies during the early part of the war. Data from aircraft was incomplete as they were limited in range and susceptible to Allied attack. Regular weather reporting by U-boats put them at risk as it broke radio silence, allowing the Allies to locate them and track their movements by radio triangulation.

Development and deployment

To gather more weather information, the Germans developed the ''Wetter-Funkgerät Land'' (WFL) automatic weather station. It was designed by Dr. Ernst Ploetze and Edwin Stoebe. Twenty-six were manufactured by Siemens. The WFL had an array of measuring instruments, a telemetry system and a 150 watt, Lorenz 150 FK-type transmitter. It consisted of ten cylindrical canisters, each by diameter ( circumference) and weighing around . One canister contained the instruments and was attached to a antenna mast. A second, shorter mast carried an anemometer and wind vane. The other canisters contained the nickel-cadmium batteries that powered the system. The WFL would send weather readings every three hours during a two-minute transmission on 3940 kHz. The system could work for up to six months, depending on the number of battery canisters.
Fourteen stations were deployed in Arctic and sub-Arctic regions (Greenland, Bear Island, Spitsbergen, and Franz Josef Land) and five were placed around the Barents Sea. Two were intended for North America. One was deployed in 1943 by the , but the submarine carrying the other, , was sunk with depth charges in September 1944 northwest of Bergen, Norway, by a British air attack.

On 18 September 1943, ''U-537'', commanded by ''Kapitänleutnant'' Peter Schrewe, departed from Kiel, Germany, on her first combat patrol. She carried WFL-26, codenamed "Kurt;" a meteorologist; Dr. Kurt Sommermeyer; and his assistant, Walter Hildebrant. En route, the U-boat was caught in a storm and a large breaker produced significant damage including leaks in the hull and the loss of the submarine's quadruple anti-aircraft cannon, leaving it both unable to dive and defenceless against Allied aircraft.

On 22 October, ''U-537'' arrived at Martin Bay in northern Labrador at a position . This is close to Cape Chidley at the north-eastern tip of the Labrador Peninsula. Schrewe selected a site this far north as he believed this would minimize the risk of the station being discovered by Inuit. Within an hour of dropping anchor, a scouting party had located a suitable site and soon after, Dr. Sommermeyer, his assistant, and ten sailors disembarked to install the station. Armed lookouts were posted on nearby high ground and other crew members set to repair the submarine's storm damage.
For concealment, the station was camouflaged. Empty American cigarette packets were left around the site to deceive any Allied personnel that chanced upon it. One canister was marked and misspelled "Canadian Meteor Service," in order to simulate "Canadian Weather Service," as a German attempt to avoid suspicion if discovered. No such agency existed in Canada. In addition, the area was part of the Dominion of Newfoundland and was not part of Canada until 1949. The crew worked through the night to install Kurt and repair their U-boat. They finished just 28 hours after dropping anchor and, after confirming the station was working, ''U-537'' departed. However, the weather station functioned for only a few days before its signals became degraded and within three weeks it permanently failed. The U-boat undertook a combat patrol in the area of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland during which she survived three attacks by Canadian aircraft, but sank no ships. The submarine reached port at Lorient, France, on 8 December after seventy days at sea. She was sunk with all hands eleven months later on 11 November 1944 by the submarine USS ''Flounder'' near the Dutch East Indies.

Rediscovery

The station was forgotten until 1977 when Peter Johnson, a geomorphologist working on an unrelated project, stumbled upon the German weather station. He suspected it was a Canadian military installation, and named it "Martin Bay 7". Around the same time, retired Siemens engineer Franz Selinger, who was writing a history of the company, 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 to the site with a team in 1981 and found the station still there, although the canisters had been opened and components strewn about the site. Weather Station Kurt was removed from its site and is now part of the collection of the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa.

See also

* North Atlantic weather war
* Schatzgräber (weather station) in the former Soviet Union

References

External links

The Nazi weather station in Labrador

Canadian War Museum artifact description


of Weather Station Kurt, including a wartime picture of the deployed station


of Weather Station Kurt

{{NLMilitary, state=collapsed

1943 meteorology
Meteorological stations
Siemens products
Buildings and structures in Newfoundland and Labrador
Military installations in Newfoundland and Labrador
Military sensor technology
Naval meteorology
World War II sites in Canada
Science and technology during World War II
World War II sites of Nazi Germany
Collections of museums in Canada
Military history of Canada during World War II
Foreign military bases in Canada