[MRCA] Other little known facts

[Dennis]

> The SCR-284 (more or less the  Army's equivalent to the TBX) had just begun to 


> be issued in time for the  landings in North Africa three months later.  The 
> SCR-194 & 195  (the Army's equivalent to the TBY) was inferior to the TBY.  
> I never  heard of any being used in North Africa.  
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Very true. The SCR-284 made it's combat debut at Operation Torch. The real hero 
of the day on the beaches however was the Pogo-Stick.

While documentation of the SCR-194/195 is North Africa has not been found, it is 
not impossible. These radios did see extensive use later in Italy. Here however 
an "urgent battlefield request" had been made to search all Signal Corps 
warehouses for Mule transportable sets to be used in the mountainous north 
Italy. Is this how the 195/194 made it there? It's unknown. Though never 
mentioned in print, nor seen in pictures, we know that the SCR-194/195 did see 
extensive use in the China/Burma theater. We know this for two reasons. #1 
because the Chinese cloned these radios after the war. #2 official accounts 
state that US forces in this theater were forced to dissect SCR-195 batteries 
for use in their SCR-300's. Stupid to have batteries for radios that weren't 
there.

Two more radios to see service at least until the end of the war, though deemed 
obsolete, were the Pogo-Stick, & the BC-474. It has not been to hard to document 
the BC-745 but keeping track of the BC-474 has been most diffecult. It desapears 
from official accounts at the same time the BC-654 inters the field. But we know 
it was still in use at least until 'D' Day because of orders placed for spare 
parts that the Signal Corps was reluctant to supply.

KB0SFP
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