Irish Zenith?

[tsrwright]

Thinking of D Day 1944 I have been looking at my father's RAF logbooks for June 1944 (SqLd RR Wright DFC etc).
In the process of converting to Mosquitos with 235 Squadron based at Portreath he had an uneventful D Day in BEAU(fighter) L' off Ushant.
The puzzle is the next mission which was not until 9 June when he recorded 'No 116 Fighter patrol as above. 1. Mosquito in distress - escorted to Predannick. Resumed Patrol 1 JU.88 destroyed'
Probably many years later he has penciled-in '60 Rounds' and 'Later confirmed as Irish Zenith from Rennes. 1 Body bailed out and 'chute did not open'.
Can anyone tell me what this is all about and what might have happened in the 'fog of war'? I am attaching the relevant pages.

 

[tsrwright]

Thinking of D Day 1944 I have been looking at my father's RAF logbooks for June 1944 (SqLd RR Wright DFC etc).
In the process of converting to Mosquitos with 235 Squadron based at Portreath he had an uneventful D Day in BEAU(fighter) L' off Ushant.
The puzzle is the next mission which was not until 9 June when he recorded 'No 116 Fighter patrol as above. 1. Mosquito in distress - escorted to Predannick. Resumed Patrol 1 JU.88 destroyed'
Probably many years later he has penciled-in '60 Rounds' and 'Later confirmed as Irish Zenith from Rennes. 1 Body bailed out and 'chute did not open'.
Can anyone tell me what this is all about and what might have happened in the 'fog of war'? I am attaching the relevant pages.

Essentially I want to know what and Irish Zenith is and how it could be mistaken for a Ju88?

 

[Snautzer01]

If I would have to guess I would say a code word for a German type of raider flight.
nuisance bomber or weather flight.

A Andrew Arthy reading this ?

 

[Antarctica]

a copy of the second page without the covering official letter would be helpful.

 

[tsrwright]

Here is the other page as requested. The suggestion Irish Zenith is some sort of code, perhaps for something German such as Ixxx Zxxx seems plausible. Many thanks.

 

[WARSPITER]

Rennes airfield at least in August 1944 had several JU-88 D recon aircraft so it is possibly one of those that
was shot down. That's assuming they were there in June.

 

[EwenS]

Ringing bells that "Zenith" was an RAF / RN code name for Luftwaffe weather flights. Unfortunately sos law means I can't find a source just now to confirm it!

So an "Irish Zenith" would most likely be a weather flight from a base in Western France out towards and beyond Ireland.

 

[EwenS]

Here is the other page as requested. The suggestion Irish Zenith is some sort of code, perhaps for something German such as Ixxx Zxxx seems plausible. Many thanks. View attachment 833216

OK now cleared my memory a bit. "Zenith" in English. "Zenit" in German.

Zenit was the Luftwaffe term for their weather flights from early in the war derived from the signal code used. Extract from this article

Werner Schwerdtfeger - TracesOfWar.com

www.tracesofwar.com

"Fuller, who described Dr. Schwerdtfeger as "Germany's foremost weather reconnaissance expert," wrote that the observations were encoded in the Zenit code and then enciphered using ciphers changed daily before being transmitted to a ground site where they were edited. The observations were then retransmitted to the Luftwaffe's main weather central, the ZentralWetterdienst Gruppe (ZWG), at Wildpark near Berlin. All weather reconnaissance reports plus all data from about 325 Luftwaffe weather reporting stations were channeled to the ZWG.[32]​ TheZenit code, in three successive versions, was used by the Wekusta throughout the war"

Wekusta 1 was a Luftwaffe weather unit formed in 1939 for this work. Subsequently responsibility transferred to other units.

Wekusta 1 - Luftwaffedata Wiki

www.luftwaffedata.co.uk

 

[Andy Fletcher]

OK now cleared my memory a bit. "Zenith" in English. "Zenit" in German.

Zenit was the Luftwaffe term for their weather flights from early in the war derived from the signal code used. Extract from this article

Werner Schwerdtfeger - TracesOfWar.com

www.tracesofwar.com

"Fuller, who described Dr. Schwerdtfeger as "Germany's foremost weather reconnaissance expert," wrote that the observations were encoded in the Zenit code and then enciphered using ciphers changed daily before being transmitted to a ground site where they were edited. The observations were then retransmitted to the Luftwaffe's main weather central, the ZentralWetterdienst Gruppe (ZWG), at Wildpark near Berlin. All weather reconnaissance reports plus all data from about 325 Luftwaffe weather reporting stations were channeled to the ZWG.[32]​ TheZenit code, in three successive versions, was used by the Wekusta throughout the war"

Wekusta 1 was a Luftwaffe weather unit formed in 1939 for this work. Subsequently responsibility transferred to other units.

Wekusta 1 - Luftwaffedata Wiki

www.luftwaffedata.co.uk

Wekusta 51 lost Ju88A-4 4T+HH (550578). It was shotdown over the bay of Biscay by S/L R. Wright 235 Sqn. The unit was operating detachments out of Nantes, Vannes and Rennes, all being subject to regular bombing and interdiction causing them to keep moving around. Uffz Walter Herbst (F), Wd Ref Paul Reidel (Bo), Ogefr Alfred Sadranowski (Bf) and Uffz Josef Zagler (Bm) all reported MIA.