Maureen Sweeney died at the age of 100
At the beginning of June 1944, young postal clerk Maureen Sweeney notices severe pressure changes over the Atlantic. Apparently, a heavy storm was coming. On the very day on which the Allies were about to launch a counterattack against Hitler's Germany.
Her weather forecast changed the Allied invasion in the Second World War: because of a meteorological report by Irishwoman Maureen Sweeney, US General Dwight Eisenhower postponed the Normandy landings, "D-Day", from June 5 to June 6, 1944. The move probably saved the lives of numerous soldiers. Sweeney has now died at the age of 100, as reported by Irish broadcaster RTÉ and the Irish Times newspaper.
In 1944, Sweeney and her future husband Ted worked at the coastguard and weather station in Blacksod in western Ireland. They were asked to take hourly barometric readings day and night in the run-up to the Allied invasion of Normandy. On the night of June 3, 1944, she was the first to detect a drop in pressure over the Atlantic. She recognized this as a sign of an approaching storm blowing towards Western Europe.
The then 21-year-old informed the meteorological office in Dublin, which passed her report on to the headquarters of the Allied forces in England. In 2014, Sweeney recalled to the Irish Independent that she received a call from London asking her to check the readings again.
These observations from the west of Ireland formed an important part of the forecasting decisions made by a team of American and British meteorologists who urged that the invasion be postponed. General Eisenhower eventually followed suit. The invasion planned for June 5 was postponed by 24 hours. In a conversation with her grandson Fergus Sweeney in 2014, Sweeney told The Sun: "They relied on our weather forecast." It was something she would remember for the rest of her life.
In 2021, Sweeney was honored by the US House of Representatives for her role on "D-Day". Born Maureen Flavin, she married the postmaster's son after the Great War and continued to run the post office in the town until her retirement. The couple had four children. Her husband Ted died in 2001 and Sweeney lived in a retirement home in Belmullet in western Ireland.
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Maureen Sweeney's meteorological predictions during the Second World War had international implications. Her accurate barometric readings from Ireland contributed to the postponement of D-Day, the Allied invasion of Normandy, from June 5 to June 6, 1944.
Following her death at the age of 100, Maureen Sweeney's significant role in the Second World War was recognized by the US House of Representatives, demonstrating her influential impact on an international stage.
Source: www.ntv.de
