A. Talkington, Sydney Thomas Commissioned
Lt. Arthur DeVere Talkington, 304 East Eighth street, and Lt. Sydney Allen Thomas, 114 Laurel street, Muscatine, were among 326 cadets of the Army Air Forces commissioned in graduation exercises at the Institute of Meteorology at the University of Chicago, Monday.
The ceremony for the 400 new weather forecasters, including a Dutch air captain who was the last man to fly out of Java, a nephew of Vice President Henry A. Wallace who received his commission, and 18 WAVES, the first group of women officers to study at the university, was held in Rockefeller Memorial chapel.
Dr. Carl G. Rossby, Swedish-born director of the university’s institute of meteorology, who was the first to instigate airplane flights for the gathering of weather data and who developed new theoretical methods which have been applied to weather forecasting, was the principal speaker. Dr. Rossby is an expert consultant to the Secretary of War.
The officers received their second lieutenant commissions from Major Louis L. Kalb, representing Central Technical Training Command, Chicago, and will go into active duty immediately as weather officers in an Army Air Forces post in the United States or abroad.
Source: Muscatine Journal and News-Tribune, Thursday, June 8, 1944
