Alexander F Sadowski
MilitaryIWM, Roger Freeman Collection
'Stormy' was a weather officer with the 56th Fighter Group. His job was to provide a weather forecast ahead of each mission and monitor conditions for landing when pilots returned. If the weather was particularly bad, he would issue a warning that 'oranges are sour' over the radio, which meant that returning pilots should not attempt landing at their home airfield.
Stormy was always the last person to talk to assembled pilots at their mission briefing. One wrote to Roger Freeman that Stormy usually 'concluded with a joke or some kind of levity to send the fighters out of the mission hut with smiles on their faces and, occasionally with laughter- to relax them before they went to their planes.'
Stormy was married Helena Sadowski, who he wrote to while based in England. The were married until her death in 1979 and had four children. Stormy continued a career in meteorology in civilian life, publishing many technical papers and articles on subjects such as tornados and pollution.
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Units served with
- Unit Hierarchy: Group
- Air Force: Eighth Air Force
- Type Category: Fighter
Revisions
Drawn from the records of the National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force, Savannah, Georgia / Mighty Eighth Air Force Heritage Museum Membership List, July 2000