HomeCollectiblesAN/CRN-4 beacon used in Bastogne

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AN/CRN-4 beacon used in Bastogne — 6 Comments

  1. You need to read the book about Jack McNeice called the Dirty Thirteen. I haven’t finished the book yet but they do refer to the CRN-4. It is a most interesting book I have read about WWII so far.

      • Jake McNiece used the CRN-4 sets in Bastogne to resupply the 101st airborne. In his book, it details the events. In further research I have discovered that without the resupply the German blitzkrieg would have been a success. The CRN-4 sets were classified for many years after the war, so it’s hard to find accounts of their usage from the time.

        • Thank you for sharing this Jack! So this is more evidence to support the CRN-4 was used during the war. I wonder if anyone knows of an actual (complete) set still in existence?

  2. Hi Wouter,

    Do you perhaps have pictures of the CRN-4 beacon? I could only find a very vague photo which does not look very reliable. But I can imagine that your manual contains good pictures and/or diagrams, right?

    Thanks a lot!
    Jeroen

    Note: To my knowledge the left instrument in your photo is not a BUPS beacon, since that is a lot larger and looks different, I can send you photos if you want. The instrument here is just a telescopic antenna with bag, which unfortunately is not that rare.

    • Hello Jeroen, I have added a picture to the post, so you can see from the antenna that the CRN-4 was a completely different set-up from the PPN-1 beacon. You can’t see it in this photo, but the beacon itself was split up into 2 padded bags + bags for the antennas. I have found 2 mentions of the CRN-4 in books, but no period photographs other than the ones I have in the manual. I shared the manual with guys who were going to make a reproduction of the beacon and the bags, but this never happened. I think it requires too much special skills and rare parts to make a convincing replica.

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