Brig. Gen. Delmar Lester Crowson was born in Belleville, Illinois in 1917. He graduated from the California Institute of Technology, known as Caltech, in 1941 with a Master’s degree in Meteorology.
Upon graduation, Brig. Gen. Crowson first served in the Army Air Force's 10th Weather Squadron in the China-Burma-India campaign as a major. The 10th WS made use of small weather teams that were inserted deep into hostile territory to provide weather observations and intelligence that supported bomber and transport crews that couriered supplies from India to China over the Himalayan mountain range, a route called “The Hump.” In 1944, Maj. Crowson was stationed near Chengdu, China and headed the U.S.-China Weather Central command supporting 10th Air Force B-29 Superfortress bomber strikes against the Japanese.
After the war, Maj. Crowson was attached to the Air Weather Service under Brig. Gen. Roger M. Ramey's 58th Bomb Wing, who were charged with dropping the first atom bomb in the Bikini Islands as part of Operation Crossroads. Maj. Crowson headed Crossroads Weather Central on Kwajalein Island and was responsible for, among many other tasks, the prediction of the movement of the radioactive particles and gases resulting from the detonations.
In 1965, Col. Crowson was promoted to the rank of brigadier general and appointed to the Atomic Energy Commission as Director of Military Application which, in 1968, transitioned into the Office of Safeguards and Materials Management. Brig. Gen. Crowson remained in this position until 1972 when he retired from military service.
EDUCATION
1939 Bachelor of Science, Chemical Engineering, University of California at Los Angeles
1941 Master’s Degree, Meteorology, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
MAJOR AWARDS AND DECORATIONS
Distinguished Service Medal
PUBLICATIONS
1947 “Bulletin American Meteorological Society,” Meteorological Aspects of Recent Long-Range Army Flights
1949 “Cloud Observations From Rockets,” Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society: 17–22
1949 “On the Variability of Upper Winds at Eniwetok, Marshall Islands,” Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
(Current as of June 2020)