Wekusta 51 at Vannes, 2-6 June 1944

[Roundway]

I'd be grateful for advice on the approximate (or average) speed flown by the Ju 88s/Ju 188s of Wekusta 51 on weather reconnaissance sorties northwest from Vannes in early June 1944. The sorties left Vannes at about 0435 (I think that's DZT) for 49N 09 W, then 51 30N 10 30W where I think an ascent was made to about 5000 m. My reason for thinking this is that archived Met Office upper air charts for early June 1944 show data for 0500 GMT (0700 DZT) at 51 30N etc, that was definitely not made by the Irish upper air station at Valentia, or RAF met reconnaissance aircraft.

The previous year Wekusta 2 had made ascents much further north,
at 54 N 12 W, (http://www.hoelti.de/auschner/index_e.htm), and I'm hoping to confirm that in June 1944 Wekusta 51 was operating a truncated sortie.

I estimate the distance from Vannes to 51 30 N 10 30 W, via 49 N 09 W is approximately 800 km (probably slightly less). I'm aware the outbound legs appear not to have been flown at a constant altitude, with at least one descent to sea-level en route.

I'm guessing the speed was about 400 km/hour.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Brian

[Nick Beale]

Courtesy of National Archives HW13/39:

1 June: a.m flight to W of Ireland by Westa 51 (Rennes) [written in margin: X Nantes? Vannes?] - 14W 486 - 25 W 238 (turning point) - 14 W 486 - (Rennes). Times: 0415-0909

2 June: Westa 51 (Vannes?) - 14 West 486 - 586 - 997 - 25 West 121 (turning point). Had engine trouble on return flight and landed Brest. Times: 0450-1030 approx.

3 June: Westa 51 route base - 14 West 486 - 993 - 25 West 16[last figure lost in binding of file] (turning point). Times 0430-0930.

4 June: Westa 51 routine forenoon flight to the W. of ireland, turning in 25 W 128: times about 0425 to 0900.

5 June: Westa 51 morning flight to 25 W 128.

6 June: no information given.

Note: All times are "M.S.T." (whatever that stands for) and where I've cross-checked they seem to equate to GMT + 2 hours.

[Roundway]

Many thanks, Nick, I'm very grateful. Your info ties in nicely with the Wekusta 51 logbook (or is it KTB). I have these details

2/06 ATD Vannes 0444; ATA Brest 1047 (Ju88D1 4T+FH)

3/06 ATD Rennes 0437; ATA Rennes 0940 (Ju188 4T+AH)

4/06 ATD Vannes 0425; ATA Rennes 0920 (Ju88D-1 4T+DH)

5/06 ATD Vannes 0407; ATA Vannes 0926 (Ju88A4 4T+HH)

6/06 ATD Vannes 0445; ATA Vannes 0935 (Ju88D1 4T+CH)

The grid points are extremely helpful - except I can't remember how to convert them to lat and long - even though I've the conversion form at http://www.ahs.no/ref_db/map_geo_loc...pez=undefined&

It is a very long time since I last used it - so can anyone help please?

Edit: I wonder if MST refers to Middleurope Summer Time?

Brian

[edNorth]

RAF did intercept GAF weather data. At the moment I cannot give source, sorry.
I think came across this reference in book on Ultra and/or Enigma.

But also, USAAF did North Atlantic Weather Recce using B-25´s and B-17´s on very long flights. B-25´s did the short runs between Canada, Greenland, Iceland and Stornoway, but B-17´s staged further, but little date on these flight paths is available.

He 111s on weather recce did about 300 km/h, Ju 88´s were about 50% faster, but ascents slowed things; Weather flights from Norway, West, then most ascent was made on the return leg, thus shorten homeward flight by using prevailing westerlies.

Typical westher flight (shown in book below) included "start cruise" at about 1800 m, decent to se level and climb to "mid-way" crusie at 2000 m, again decent to sea level (to get precicse pressure again, I guess) then ascent to 2500 m, then home ward turn and climb to 6000 m (450mb -38 C) then decent to 3000 m and (free) home cruise. A smart flight profile.

Source: Schwerdfeger/Selinger "Wetterflieger in der Arktis 1940-1944"

-Ed

[Larry deZeng]

Brian -

If you plan on looking at a few books, this would be an excellent choice, too:

Kingston, John A. and Franz Selinger. Wekusta: Luftwaffe Meteorological Reconnaissance Units & Operations 1938-1945. Ottringham (East Yorkshire): Flight Recorder Publications Ltd., 2006. ISBNs: 0 9545605 8 2 and 978 0 9545605 8 4. Hb (oversize). Dj. 256p. Heavily illus. Color profiles. Maps. Charts. Tables. Appendices. Bibliography. Index.

Kingston is/was a senior executive with Her Majesty's weather service for his entire career and he knows his stuff. The book is full of technical details and all of the original German documentation was used, as well as ULTRA and ZENIT studies.

L.

[Roundway]

Thanks Ed,

Yes, the British had a break on 12 June 1940 when a Heinkel III of Wekusta 51 on a met sortie, was shot down off Margate by F/S Gellant (signature
on the combat report illegible). Two survivors were rescued by the Golden Spray, a fishing boat that witnessed the Heinkel crash. There was a third survivor, the meteorolgist Dr Hermann Freudenberg, but he drowned before he could be rescued. (From the Isle of Thanet Gazette, and a Margate historian who interviewed the captain of the Golden Spray in the 1990s).

Freudenberg's body was handed to the Royal Navy and that was the last heard of him, his body just disappeared and has no known grave. However, a decode of the met code was found in one of his pockets and that was used to break the Wekusta code. (From Wekusta by Kington and Selinger).

The Wekusta units used a variety of flight profiles, which I think are described in Wekusta although I don't have a personal copy.

The trans-Atlantic American met flights were flown by DC4s at about 10000 ft - I know the meteorologist (now 95) who made the first crossing, no sea-level observations were made, nor any ascents. The Americans did use UK-based B-17s to supplement the routine RAF met reconnaissance sorties; these made twice daily low-level (1500 ft asl) flights from Bovingdon to about 49N 22W, an ascent being made to 18000 ft at that point. (Even the birds were walking by Ratcliffe and Kington.

Brian

[Roundway]

My thanks, Larry. You rather beat me to it, but as my last post suggests I'm familiar with Kington's work.

Brian

[Roundway]

A slight correction to #6; the USAAF used the C-54A for the trans-Atlantic flights, the DC4 was the civil version. An account of the first trip can be found on page 10 of http://www.rmets.org/sites/rmets.org...news1302_0.pdf .

Brian

[edNorth]

Thanks Brian for the C-54A Skymaster remainder. Strange decisicion send them direct, as long before (from spring 1943) them westbound ATC C-54 flights had already routed thrugh Meeks Field (Keflavik), only adding about 4-6 hours to the trip. In winter 1944/1945 these Meeks fuel-stops were NOT suspended for the winter (as had been in winter 1943/1944, but by February they begain trickle again thugh and from March they were regular visitors.)

As side note (Record) History ATC North Atlantic Wing, is available but I have not looked at those films for years. This particularar plane C-54A was AAC 41-37281 assigned/operated (by) American Airlines (AAL), as were 18 other Skymasters in summer 1944. List of all these as of 6 May 1944 is attached.

http://i57.tinypic.com/sfxag7.jpg

[Roundway]

Thank you, Ed.

Cracked it, Nick. The track that was flown on 2 - 5 June was Vannes (or Rennes as appropriate) - 47 30N 03 30W, then direct to 51 30N 10 30 W. On the 1st the northern turning point was 52 30N 11 30W. The northern turning points are consistent with the positions of the observations plotted near Valentia (51 55N 10 20W) in southwest Ireland on the Met Office charts - which is what I was trying to confirm.

My apologies for throwing in a red herring in post#1 by stating the way-point was 49N 09W. It would appear that by this time of the war the standard track was no longer being used.

My thanks to all respondees - your help is much appreciated.

Brian