Luftwaffe claims 27.07.41

Not long ago my flying school mate asked me to help him with his uncle, who MIA being a Petlyakov Pe-2 gunner.
As to his uncle's family records he was missed on 27 Jul 1941 somewhere in Rzev outskirts. His bomber was shot down by Luftwaffe fighters. Navigator bailed out, a pilot tried too, but the plane tail broke off and he had no enough altitude to survive (was buried in a chute). The gunner wasn't found at all. Military arhive records we looked through were useless to give us the place of the incident.
Is it possible to find out Luftwaffe claims over Pe-2 (or 2-motor bombers) nearby Rzev on the date? I hope there are records with coordinates of a shot down Pe-2, so we can send a rescue party in these regions and try to find a pilot grave or some eyewitness if any.

[Nick Beale]

This site is a good place to start: http://lesbutler.co.uk/claims/tonywood.htm

[Laurent Rizzotti]

Using the latest source available (Prien's Jagdfliegerverbände book) I found only 3 claims for Pe-2 on 27 July 1941, but all were made by III./JG 53 pilots (between 1020 and 1030 hrs German time). This unit was then based in Estonia, so it is unlikely they were scored in Rzev area.

Because the main problem in your question is that 40 of the 73 claims known of German fighters for 27 July 1941 have no known location. The III./JG 53 claims are in this case, so we only have the base used by the unit at the time to give us a very rough idea of the location.

48 claims this day were against SB/DB bombers, and maybe one was your Pe-2 misidentified.

If you have access to the Soviet loss report, it might contain the take-off time, or maybe the air battle time. This will help to reduce the number of possible claimants.

It is also possible that the Pe-2 was shot down by Bf 110s rather than Bf 109s. In this case I don't have a claim list for this kind of unit.

[Nokose]

The www.OBDmemoral.ru sometimes gives a location. Do you have a unit and his name?