#1
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לפני 10 שנים
Without going into the boring details, this system used a morse code transmission of a particular letter for a particular bearing, a different letter for each 15 degree sector. This was a UHF line-of-sight system, so the higher you were the better. If the letter you were receiving changed, then you knew you were moving tangentially to the transmission point. You simply found the strongest signal and followed it back to the ship. In the early days of the war it was a fairly new system and some pilots were more proficient with it than others and those less proficient tended to be less believing. For example on the 4 May 42 Yorktown strike on Tulagi, there were 4 F4Fs very hurriedly sent off to deal with some F1Ms that were bothering the SBD and TBD strike planes. After performing their mission, shooting down 3 of the F1Ms, and shooting up a destroyer they happened upon, they started to head back to the ship. The division leader signaled for an increase in altitude to pick up the YE-ZB signal, but his section leader did not see the signal (although the section leader's wingman did). So the division leader and his wingman pulled up through the cloud layer, picked up the signal, and, after milling about a bit waiting for the other two, proceeded back to the ship. The section leader left behind had a problem, his radio did not work. His wingman's did. Eventually they came up through the clouds and the wingman picked up the YE-ZB signal. He also made radio contact with the ship and started flying a box pattern so the ship could get a good radio fix so to tell him which letter he should be listening for. Well, as far as the section leader was concerned, his wingman was flying in all sorts of odd directions for no apparent reason and finally signaled him to knock it off and then led the way back to Guadalcanal where they bellied in on Cape Henslow - - - with the wingman keeping a running commentary with the ship the whole time. Result was two of the ship's 18 F4Fs were lost for no apparent reason. The two pilots were rescued the next day through some extraordinary efforts by the crew of USS Hammann. Apropos of nothing else, I have the original flight instructions for this mission carried by the division leader. It clearly indicates the ship's location relative to Tulagi and the Point Option for the return. The division leader was clear in his recounting that the instructions would have gotten him back to the ship, but the YE-ZB was easier.
Even worse happened at Midway when the VF-8 strike escort improperly used their YE-ZB and all 10 of them ended up ditched at various locations. Fortunately for some of them some rather diligent PBY crews managed to find and rescue 8 as I recall. This was a combination screw up in that the flight was not given a Point Option and their own unfamiliarity with the YE-ZB system sealed their fate. They actually saw the smoke of the US task group off to their north as they headed off into the expanse of the Pacific, but were so screwed up in their navigation that the leader presumed he was looking at the Japanese.[b]
Even worse happened at Midway when the VF-8 strike escort improperly used their YE-ZB and all 10 of them ended up ditched at various locations. Fortunately for some of them some rather diligent PBY crews managed to find and rescue 8 as I recall. This was a combination screw up in that the flight was not given a Point Option and their own unfamiliarity with the YE-ZB system sealed their fate. They actually saw the smoke of the US task group off to their north as they headed off into the expanse of the Pacific, but were so screwed up in their navigation that the leader presumed he was looking at the Japanese.[b]
