The Chief of Naval Operations and Commander in the Chief, Pacific fleet, have both sent a "well done" to the officers and men of Airborne Early Warning Squadron One for their activities during the 1962 typhoon season. The Typhoon Trackers flew 332 weather reconnaissance flights in that season, totalling 2180 hours.
The weather information gathered by the squadron's radar-equipped EC-121K Warning Stars (WV-2) was passed to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center, Guam, and all WesPac.
The Warning Center credited information provided by the EC-121K aircraft as contributing greatly to the low casualities suffered on Guam during Karen.
VW-1 aircraft range over an area from the Malay Peninsula to the International Date Line and from the equator, north, while performing missions.
THE TYPHOON TRACKERS of Airborne Early Warning Squadron One, though hard hit at their home base by Typhoon
Karen, continued to track that destructive lady as she smashed her way across the Pacific. Operating from NAS
Atsugi, NAF Naha and NS Sangley Point, squadron aircraft logged 145 hours in 14 flights over a nine-day
period.Some of these flights passed over Guam as the eye of the storm closed with that island making operations from NAS Agana impossible. With peak gusts to 180 knots, (207 mph) Karen proved the most destructive typhoon in Guam's history. However VW-1 was able to launch a weather reconnaissance flight from NAS Agana within four days of Karen's passing.
