[Tim O.]

I am currently researching a Flugbuch from one of the Horn crew and it has brought me back to this discussion. I have found three missions identified as 'Raum Dorog Nachtflug', two of which occurred on 20th March 1942 and one on 22nd March 1942. On the first of these missions (between 03:27 and 06:20 on 20th March) there is a comment 'Abschuss DB 3'. This falls outside the dates discussed before but appears to be in the same area, assuming 'Dorog' is Dorogobuzh.

The pilot of the aircraft is Leutnant Erich Horn (mentioned earlier in the thread) and the Flugbuch I have is for his Air Gunner Unteroffizier Werner Petersen (later Oberfeldwebel, DKiG). They are a 5./KG 53 crew but fly A1+GN for two of the missions and A1+AP for one of them.

All of their claims are as follows:

20th March 1942 between 03:27 and 06:20, flying A1+GN - 1 TB-3 shot down Dorogobuzh area

Further claims are made as follows:

12th May 1942 between 20:45 and 22:30, flying A1+AN - 1 TB-3 shot down Yelnya area
22nd May 1942 between 20:00 and 23:50 , flying A1+AN - 2 TB 3 shot down Yelnya area
30th/31st May 1942 between 23:23 and 02:18, flying A1+AN - 1 TB-3 shot down Yelnya area

Quite a lot of night flights were flown during May 1942 to achieve these 'kills' but night operations seem to have ended on 2nd June 1942 and the crew resumed daylight operations from 3rd June.

Does anyone have more information on this now?