Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry of the Army of the United States, 1917 Part 54

(Extracts from Signal Book, United States Army, 1916.)

General Instructions for Army Signaling.

1. Each signal station will have its call, consisting of one or two letters, as Was.h.i.+ngton, "W"; and each operator or signalist will also have his personal signal of one or two letters, as Jones, "Jo." These being once adopted will not be changed without due authority.

2. To lessen liability of error, numerals which occur in the body of a message should be spelled out.

3. In receiving a message the man at the telescope should call out each letter as received, and not wait for the completion of a word.

4. A record of the date and time of the receipt or transmission of every message must be kept.

5. The duplicate ma.n.u.script of messages received at, or the original sent from, a station should be carefully filed.

6. In receiving messages nothing should be taken for granted, and nothing considered as seen until it has been positively and clearly in view. Do not antic.i.p.ate what will follow from signals already given. Watch the communicating station until the last signals are made, and be very certain that the signal for the end of the message has been given.

7. Every address must contain at least two words and should be sufficient to secure delivery.

8. All that the sender writes for transmission after the word "To" is counted.

9. Whenever more than one signature is attached to a message count all initials and names as a part of the message.

10. Dictionary words, initial letters, surnames of persons, names of cities, towns, villages, States, and Territories, or names of the Canadian Provinces will be counted each as one word: _e._g._, New York, District of Columbia, East St. Louis should each be counted as one word. The abbreviation of the names of cities, towns, villages, States, Territories, and provinces will be counted the same as if written in full.

11. Abbreviations of weights and measures in common use, figures, decimal points, bars of division, and in ordinal numbers the affixes "st," "d," "nd," "rd," and "th" will be each counted as one word. Letters and groups of letters, when such groups do not form dictionary words and are not combinations of dictionary words, will be counted at the rate of five letters or fraction of five letters to a word. When such groups are made up of combinations of dictionary words, each dictionary word so used will be counted.

12. The following are exceptions to paragraph 55, and are counted as shown:

A. M. 1 word P. M. 1 word O. K. 1 word Per cent 1 word

13. No message will be considered sent until its receipt has been acknowledged by the receiving station.

The International Morse or General Service Code.

18. The International Morse Code is the General Service Code and is prescribed for use by the Army of the United States and between the Army and the Navy of the United States. It will be used on radio systems, submarine cables using siphon recorders, and with the heliograph, flash-lantern, and all visual signaling apparatus using the wigwag.

_Alphabet_.

A . - N - .

B - . . . O - - - C - . - . P . - - .

D - . . Q - - . - E . R . - .

F . . - . S . . .

G - - . T - H . . . . U . . - I . . V . . . - J . - - - W . - - K - . - X - . . - L . - . . Y - . - - M - - Z - - . .

_Numerals_.

1 . - - - - 6 - . . . .

2 . . - - - 7 - - . . .

3 . . . - - 8 - - - . .

4 . . . . - 9 - - - - .

5 . . . . . 0 - - - - -

_Punctuation_.

Period . . . . . .

Comma . - . - . - Interrogation . . - - . .

Hyphen or dash - . . . . - Parentheses (before and after the words) - . - - . - Quotation mark (beginning and ending) . - . . - .

Exclamation - - . . - - Apostrophe . - - - - .

Semicolon - . - . - .

Colon - - - . . .

Bar indicating fraction - . . - .

Underline (before and after the word or words it is wished to underline) . . - - . - Double dash (between preamble and address, between address and body of message, between body of message and signature, and immediately before a fraction) - . . . - Cross . - . - .

Visual Signaling in General.

21. Methods of visual signaling are divided as follows:

(a) By flag, torch, hand lantern, or beam of searchlight (without shutter). (General Service Code).

(b) By heliograph, flash lantern, or searchlight (with shutter).

(General Service Code).

(c) By Ardois. (General Service Code).

(d) By hand flags or by stationary semaph.o.r.e. (Two-arm semaph.o.r.e Code.)

(e) By preconcerted signals with Coston lights, rockets, bombs, Very pistols, small arms, guns, etc.

(f) By flag signals by permanent hoists. (International Code.)

22. The following conventional signals, with exceptions noted, will be used in the first four cla.s.ses.

_Exceptions_ Ardois and semaph.o.r.e.

End of word. Interval.

End of sentence. Double interval.

End of message. Triple interval.

Signal separating preamble from address; address from text; text from signature. - . . . - Double interval, signature preceded also by "Sig."

Interval.

Acknowledgement. R.

Error. . . . . . . . . A.

Negative. K.

Preparatory. L.

Annulling. N.

Affirmative. P.

Interrogatory. . . - - . . O.

Repeat after word. Interrogatory. A (word).

Repeat last message. Interrogatory three times Send faster. QRQ Send slower. QRS Cease sending QRT Wait a moment . - . . . None.