The woman whose weather report changed the date of D-Day
Listen now
Description
In 1944, a young Irishwoman called Maureen Flavin drew up a weather report that helped change the course of World War Two. Maureen was working at a post office in Blacksod on the far west coast of Ireland. Her duties included recording rainfall, wind speeds, temperature and air pressure. On 3 June, she sent one of her hourly reports to Dublin, unaware that the figures were being passed on to the Allied headquarters in England. It was the first indication of bad weather heading towards the coast of France - and it was a huge blow. Hundreds of thousands of British, American and Canadian servicemen had already gathered for the most ambitious operation of the war, the assault of the Normandy beaches on 5 June. But after reading Maureen’s report, chief meteorologist Group Captain James Stagg advised a delay of 24 hours. US General, Dwight Eisenhower, gave the order, and D-Day was finally launched on 6 June, 1944. A date that went down in history. Maureen's son Edward Sweeney tells Jane Wilkinson about the family's pride in their mother. (Photo: Maureen Sweeney. Credit: Sweeney family photo)
More Episodes
Published 10/02/24
In 1988, Jorge Gonzalez was a basketball star in Argentina and became the first athlete from this country drafted by an NBA team, the Atlanta Hawks. He was over 2.5m tall due to gigantism, which led to big day-to-day challenges like finding shoes his size. But it also gave him great...
Published 09/06/24
On 13 April 1970, a Moon mission almost ended in tragedy, after an explosion on board the spaceship. Fred Haise was one of the Apollo 13 astronauts. In 2010, he spoke to Richard Howells about how they managed to get back to Earth against the odds. Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive....
Published 09/05/24