Mark,
I think it's best that I amplify the reply I gave on RAFCommands at
http://www.rafcommands.com/forum/sho...t-Flight/page2
The original Met Flight was formed at the behest of the Met Office at Eastchurch during November 1924, to make twice-daily vertical ascents above the base airfield to record temperature and humidity aloft, together with details about cloud and icing. This information was of great value to meteorologists as it was not avaliable from any other source. This unit moved to Duxford in Jan 1925, then Mildenhall in November 1936, each time being known by the station name. The unit was always very small (two pilots) and the work repetitive, two flights daily; and I suspect that because of this it was not considered necessary to maintain a diary.
If memory serves correctly even those flying units that did maintain an ORB were not that conscientious in so doing.
Mildenhall Met Flight was renamed 401 Met Flight in Jan or Feb 1941, and 1401 Met Flight on 1 April. It moved to Bircham Newton during October.
During all this time its role remained the same, twice daily ascents over the base airfield, and it seems as though because of the repetitiveness of the task it was still considered unnecessary to open an ORB.
This state of affairs was obviously still the case when P9550 was sent off on what was the first PAMPA sortie. Its tragic end appears to have put a dampener on the idea for a while. 1401 Met Flight absorbed 1403 Met Flight in Feb 1942 to become a much larger unit flying a greater variety of operations.
!403 Met Flight, formed for maritime met reconnaissance, HAD maintained an ORB when it became operational on 1 April 1941, since its operations were conducted away from base. Consequently the new 1401 Met Flight was very much larger and had a considerably expanded role, and for that reason started an ORB.
!402 Met Flight had started life as the Aldergrove Met Flight in November 1936; it was renamed 402 Met Flight in Jan 1942, then 1402 in March. This unit did maintain an ORB from its formation, although the daily entries rarely varied.
I'd appreciate the reference of the Bomber Command file to which you refer. Whilst I don't doubt that Bomber Command was very worried about forecasts for Germany I'd very much like to have sight of the documentation.
For the record the Met Office had been pressing for maritime met reconnaissance units from the beginning of the war, but the answer was always the same - lack of both aircraft and aircraft with sufficient range to make such an exercise worthwhile. Maritime met reconnaissance units were approved on 4 October 1940, but they did not start forming until March 1941 (1403, 1404 and 1405). Bomber Command appears to have had no input in these units, but, again, should there be more I can add to my archive a file reference would be really useful.
I am confident in my own mind that the files you appear to be accusing people of removing, never existed - which has always been a problem for those of us interested in the Met Flights.
Brian