Posted:
By: Clyde Mings
On: 03/30/2006
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Paul- I was a radio operator and the buncher beacons and splashers were low powered navigational aids used by our navigators to get us all together after takeoff. The bunchers gave an assembly area to allow the formation to get organized. Aircraft still use somewhat the same idea as outer, middle, and inner marker beacon signals projected vertically with fan shaped signals on 75 MHZ that tells the pilot where he is in respect to the runway approach by flashing different colored lights and audio tones. It is embarrasing to tell it, but prior to D-Day we blew our first mission because the navigator formed us on the wrong buncher. It was supposed to be 8R8 in Morse code and he misread it as 8A8. There is a single "dit" difference between A and R , but by the time I convinced him that we were in the wrong place, it was too late to join our own outfit and you just dont tag along with another outfit to an unknown target.I am no authority on either bunchers or splashers, but radio operators CAN read Morse!
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