Phonetic Alphabets...

There have been many attempts by many organisations to create an universal list of words associated with the twenty-six letters of the alphabet most generally used by most countries around the world. This page is written from the perspective of an English-speaking person who has used the last three in his work as well as his leisure.

There were earlier ones; during World War 1, the British army discovered that speech down crackly telephone lines between the trenches often created problems in the person at the 'other end' not understanding a word - even when spelled. Those who are familiar with the relief organisation known as 'Tock H' - after its founder, Lord Talbot - would perhaps be aware that 'Tock' was the WW1 British army abbreviation for the letter pronounced 'tee', there not being one for 'H' because there wasn't another letter that could be mistaken for 'H'. There being bee, cee, dee, eee, gee, pee, tee and vee sounds, they used different sounding words to spell each, to help avoid communication problems. So, 'Tock H' was the phonetic abbreviation for T H or 'Talbot House'. If you think I have left one out, the letter Z in English is actually pronounced 'Zed', not 'Zee' as the Americans do.

The British Post Office in its telephone directories of the same era and up to much later suggested an alphabet that used personal names; I remember the first two were 'Andrew... Benjamin...'.

When I joined the Royal Air Force as a trainee pilot in about 1953, I was already familiar with the World War 2 British military phonetics list that started 'Able... Baker... Charlie... Dog...'. This was also used by the Royal Navy who chose to name its signal flags by those phonetics rather than by letters - again, a command in a howling gale, from the officer of the watch to a signalman of 'Make a signal - George - How - Roger - X-Ray' would be more likely to result in the correct flags being hoisted than 'Make a signal, G H R X'. Incidentally, I have no recollection of what that particular signal means.

In 1951 when their new Manual of Seamanship was issued, replacing the 1935 edition (how I wish I still had both), the Royal Navy also adopted the flag layout used internationally by merchant ships - The International Code of Signals - to replace their own different one, to avoid confusion at sea, and also their meanings for single flags and multiple flag hoists. For example the flag represented by the letter 'U' means 'You are standing into danger'.

When I left the Royal Air Force in 1955, the same phonetic alphabet was in use by them too; for example my personal radio callsign (while flying Prentices and Harvards at Cluntoe in Northern Ireland) was 'Baker Five Zero'.

However, working in the quasi-military proof range in Wales in about 1963, I discovered that the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy had by then converted to the phonetic alphabet used by the American military, and it was around the same time that the entire civil aviation industry changed. This is the 'Alpha... Bravo... Charlie... Delta...' alphabet.

All Merchant ships and shore stations round the world were still using their unique phonetic alphabet, comprised mainly of the names of well-known ports or countries served by ships, starting with 'Amsterdam... Baltimore... Casablanca... Danmark...'. This must have caused some confusion for warships' radio operators in their having to remember which phonetic alphabet to use with which shore station or ship station they were communicating.

It was not until I obtained my Marine Radio Operator's Certificate of Proficiency in 1972 - some years after coming to Australia - that I discovered that maritime phonetics were now the same as military and aviation ones. It makes good sense to standardise in such a situation, but of course a lot of history gets lost in so doing.