Allied military phonetic spelling alphabets

The US and UK began to coordinate calling alphabets by the military during World War II and by 1943 they had settled on a streamline communications that became known as the CCB. Both nations had previous independently developed alphabet naming system dating back to World War I. Subsequently, this second world war era letter naming became accepted as standard by the ICAO in 1947. After the creation of NATO in 1949, modifications began to take place. An alternative name for the ICAO spelling alphabet, "NATO phonetic alphabet", exists because it appears in Allied Tactical Publication ATP-1, Volume II: Allied Maritime Signal and Maneuvering Book used by all navies of NATO, which adopted a modified form of the International Code of Signals. Because the latter allows messages to be spelled via flags or Morse code, it naturally named the code words used to spell out messages by voice its "phonetic alphabet". The name NATO phonetic alphabet became widespread because the signals used to facilitate the naval communications and tactics of NATO have become global. However, ATP-1 is marked NATO Confidential (or the lower NATO Restricted) so it is not available publicly. Nevertheless, a NATO unclassified version of the document is provided to foreign, even hostile, militaries, even though they are not allowed to make it available publicly. The spelling alphabet is now also defined in other unclassified international military documents. The NATO alphabet appeared in some United States Air Force Europe publications during the Cold War. A particular example was the Ramstein Air Base Telephone Directory, published between 1969 and 1973 (currently out of print). The US and NATO versions had differences, and the translation was provided as a convenience. Differences included Alfa, Bravo and Able, Baker for the first two letters. The NATO phonetic spelling alphabet was first adopted on 1 January 1956, while the ICAO radiotelephony spelling alphabet was still undergoing final changes. == United Kingdom military spelling alphabets ==

British Army radiotelephony spelling alphabet Royal Navy radiotelephony spelling alphabet RAF radiotelephony spelling alphabet The RAF radiotelephony spelling alphabet, sometimes referred to as the "RAF Phonetic Alphabet", was used by the British Royal Air Force (RAF) to aid communication after the take-up of radio, especially to spell out aircraft identification letters, e.g. "H for Harry", "G for George", etc. Several alphabets were used, before being superseded by the adoption of the NATO/ICAO radiotelephony alphabet. of the Polish 303 Kościuszko Squadron showing the RAF squadron code "RF" of 303 Squadron and the individual aircraft letter "D" which would be spoken, , Seneca edition, with spelling alphabet for telephone and radio use History During World War I battle lines were often static and forces were commonly linked by wired telephone networks. Signals were weak on long wire runs and field telephone systems often used a single wire with earth return, which made them subject to inadvertent and deliberate interference. Spelling alphabets were introduced for wire telephony as well as on the newer radio voice equipment. The British Army and the Royal Navy had developed their own quite separate spelling alphabets. The Navy system was a full alphabet, starting: Apples, Butter, Charlie, Duff, Edward, but the RAF alphabet was based on that of the "signalese" of the army signallers. This was not a full alphabet, but differentiated only the letters most frequently misunderstood: Ack (originally "Ak"), Beer (or Bar), C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, eMma, N, O, Pip, Q, R, eSses, Toc, U, Vic, W, X, Y, Z. By 1921, the RAF "Telephony Spelling Alphabet" had been adopted by all three armed services, and was then made mandatory for UK civil aviation, as announced in Notice to Airmen Number 107. In 1956, the NATO phonetic alphabet was adopted due to the RAF's wide commitments with NATO and worldwide sharing of civil aviation facilities. Beer Charlie Dog Edward Freddy George Harry In Jug/Johnny King Love Mother Nuts Orange Peter Queen Roger/Robert Sugar Tommy Uncle Vic William X-ray Yoke/Yorker Zebra--> The choice of Nuts following Monkey is probably from "monkey nuts" (peanuts); likewise Orange and Pip can be similarly paired, as in "orange pip". "Vic" subsequently entered the English language as the standard "Vee"-shaped flight pattern of three aircraft. == United States military spelling alphabets ==

US Army radiotelephony spelling alphabet 'Interrogatory' was used in place of 'Inter' in joint Army/Navy Operations. US Navy radiotelephony spelling alphabet The US Navy's first phonetic spelling alphabet was not used for radio, but was instead used on the deck of ships "in calling out flags to be hoisted in a signal". There were two alternative alphabets used, which were almost completely different from each other, with only the code word "Xray" in common. The US Navy's first radiotelephony phonetic spelling alphabet was published in 1913, in the Naval Radio Service's Handbook of Regulations developed by Captain William H. G. Bullard. The Handbook's procedures were described in the November 1917 edition of Popular Science Monthly. Joint Army/Navy radiotelephony spelling alphabet The Joint Army/Navy (JAN) spelling alphabet was developed by the Joint Board on 13 November 1940, and it took effect on 1 March 1941. It was reformulated by the CCB following the entrance of the US into World War II by the CCB "Methods and Procedures" committee, The response "Roger" for "· – ·" or "R", to mean "received", also derives from this alphabet. The names Able to Fox were also widely used in the early days of hexadecimal digital encoding of text, for speaking the hexadecimal digits A to F (equivalent to decimal 10 to 15), although the written form was simply the capital letters A to F. ==See also==