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Texas hurricane 1942

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Dwilma01
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Texas hurricane 1942

In '42 Dad was a cadet at Kelly Field near San Antonio. He said that when a hurricane came through that summer, cadets were assigned to sprawl out on the wings of aircraft that could not be evacuated in order to keep them from blowing over. Weather reports were embargoed in newspapers so there is probably no record of the event there.

Has anyone heard of 1) this storm and 2) the idea of using men to keep the planes from being damaged. 

David Wilma
Son of 1LT Francis R. "Dick" Wilma (1920-2005)
Air Transport Command, Chabua, India, '44 - '45
www.DavidWilma.com
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    Lucky Partners
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    Re:Texas hurricane 1942 (permalink)
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    David
    August 30, 1942 a 'no name' hurricane made landfall at Corpus Christi as a category 1 storm.  Earlier out in the Gulf it had been Category 3.  By the time it reached San Antonio it was down to Tropical Storm strength between 50 and 70 MPH.  The only other storm to hit Texas in 1942 made landfall at Galveston and came nowhere near San Antonio.
    The thought of using men as human 'sand bags' seems pretty far fetched.  Even at just 50 MPH the prospect of severe injury from flying debris would be quite great.  Also, the storm was moving at between 10 and 15 miles an hour at that point so those men would have been out there for hours as the storm passed.
    Summary attached, follow link for more info:
    http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/...lib/mwreviews/1942.pdf
    Hal
     

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    vic-513
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    Re:Texas hurricane 1942 (permalink)
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    I was 8 years old at this time and slept through the storm. When I woke up, our windmill was laying in the yard. We sustained no damage that I can remember other than trees being blown down. This was about 35 miles north of Corpus Christi.

    Vic Walzel, brother of 1st Lt Leland H. Walzel, bombardier with the 93rd Bomb Group, 330th Squadron. KIA 6 March 1944 on his 25th mission.
    www.lelandwalzel.150m.com
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    Dwilma01
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    Re:Texas hurricane 1942 (permalink)
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    The men-as-sandbags story is probably GI urban legend, but we have seen and heard before of poorly-conceived schemes on the part of the army.

    David Wilma
    Son of 1LT Francis R. "Dick" Wilma (1920-2005)
    Air Transport Command, Chabua, India, '44 - '45
    www.DavidWilma.com
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