CODES

A.) TAP CODE/ PRISONERS CODE/ KNOCK CODE

- Was used by POW’s (Prisoners of War)

- The tap code is based on a Polybius square, a 5×5 grid of letters representing all the
letters of the Latin alphabet, except for K, which is represented by C.

- In June 1965, four POWs -- Captain Carlyle ("Smitty") Harris, Lieutenant Phillip
Butler, Lieutenant Robert Peel and Lieutenant Commander Robert Shumaker (Prisoners
from the Vietnam War) -- who were imprisoned in the same cell in Hoa Lo devised a
simple, secretive code. The four men, expecting to be split up again, vowed to continue
their resistance. To do so, they knew communicating closely would be essential. Harris
remembered an Air Force instructor who had shown him a secret code based on a five-
by-five alphabet matrix. Thus, they used that code for secret communication.

- The letter x was used to break up sentences and the letter "c" replaced the letter "k." 

- Because of the difficulty and length of time required for specifying a single letter,
prisoners often devise abbreviations and acronyms for common items or phrases, such as:
1.) "GN" for Good Night
2.) "GBU" for God Bless You
3.) “ST” for Sleep Tight
B.) MORSE CODE

- Morse Code is named after Samuel F. B. Morse (1791-1872), a painter and

founder of the National Academy of Design, who, along with Alfred Vail (1807-1859) a
machinist and inventor, and the physicist Joseph Henry (1797-1878) developed the
electromagnetic telegraph and the code that assigns a set of dots and dashes or short and
long pulses to each letter of the English alphabet. The first working telegraph was
produced in 1836. This made transmission possible over any distance.

- The first Morse Code message, "What hath God wrought!” was sent from Washington
to Baltimore in 1844, with Vail being the recipient.

- For efficiency, the length of each character in Morse is approximately inversely

proportional to its frequency of occurrence in English. Thus, the most common letter in
English, the letter "E," has the shortest code, a single dot.

- Morse Code can be transmitted using sound or light, as sometimes happens

between ships at sea. It is used in emergencies to transmit distress signals when no other
form of communication is available. The standard international distress signal is •••---•••
(SOS)
C.) NATO PHONETIC ALPHABET/ RADIOTELEPHONY SPELLING ALPHABET

- The phonetic alphabet is a system created by the NATO allies in the 1950s that
would be intelligible and pronounceable to all NATO allies in the heat of battle.

- Was approved in the 1950’s in order to account for discrepancies that might arise
in communications as a result of multiple alphabet naming systems coexisting in different
places and organizations.

- The reason that any phonetic alphabet is (or was) used is because telephone, radio
and walkie-talkie communications had the habit of crackling over long distances, blotting
out whole words or even sentences.

- Used by North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the International

Telecommunication Union (ITU), the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the
American Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the Alliance for Telecommunications
Industry Solutions (ATIS), and the American Radio Relay League (ARRL).

- It’s different from IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) because it uses Latin and used
to represent sounds of any language.

- Used by airline pilots and during special operations

D.) FLAG SEMAPHORE

- An alphabet signalling system based on the waving of a pair of hand-held flags in a

particular pattern in order to convey information at a distance.

- The flags are held, arms extended, in various positions representing each of the letters
of the alphabet. The pattern resembles a clock face divided into eight positions: up, down,
out, high, low, for each of the left and right hands (LH and RH) six letters require the
hand to be brought across the body so that both flags are on the same side.

- Signalling devices have been traced back to ancient times (using torches). These
“telegraphs” could have since been in the form of torches, smoke signals and
eventually semaphore towers. Semaphore towers used large blades/paddles to
convey messages. These messages were decoded based on the fixed positions of these
arms and could transmit signals up to 150 miles in two minutes using multiple towers.

- The semaphore tower/semaphore line design was first thought up by Robert

Hooke in 1684 and submitted to the Royal Society. but was not implemented though due
to military concerns. However, this did lead to Claude Chappe developing the first visual
telegraph in 1792 - eventually covering much of France via 556 stations. Chappe’s design
became the most widely used semaphore design.

- Chappe’s design used large towers that had a single crossbar with large pivoting

“arms” at the ends and were spaced as far as part as the eye could see. The crossbar could
be used in 4 different positions while the arms could be in 7 different positions each, for a
combination of 196 (4x7x7) characters. These 196 characters could be combined to
create a multitude of messages and phrases. Some have estimated that there were as many
as 9,999 different “codes” created.

- These visual messaging systems eventually led to semaphore flags. These flags
were used in the same way that the arms were used on the semaphore towers – different
fixed positions mean different messages.
- Even Napoleon used one design to communicate to his army strategies and
locations of his enemies. It proved to be a very useful tactic during battles, most famously
the Battle of Trafalgar during the Napoleonic Wars.

- Semaphore can be for maritime use (sea) or for non- maritime use (on mountains)
especially when you’re in places where there’s a signal difficulty.

- At sea, the flags are colored red and yellow (the Oscar flag), while on land, they are
white and blue (the Papa flag).

Oscar Flag Papa Flag

FLAG SEMAPHORE
E.) WIGWAG SIGNALLING

- Wigwag signalling was performed during daylight with a single flag tied to a
hickory staff constructed in four-foot jointed sections. Flags were generally made of
cotton, linen, or another lightweight fabric. Waving the flag around on the left and right
side indicates the dots and dashes of Morse code.

- Albert J. Meyer is the inventor of wig-wag signalling (or aerial telegraphy). He is also

known as the father of the U.S. Army Signal Corps, as its first chief signal officer just
prior to the American Civil War, and also as the father of the U.S. Weather Bureau.

WIGWAG SIGNALLING