Code signal flags are used in an internationally-understood system comprised of 26 square code-letter flags for each letter of the alphabet (A-Z); there are also ten numeral pennants, one answering pennant, and three repeaters.
Code signal color flag combinations are red and white; blue and yellow; blue and white; black and white; and plain red – colors that can easily be seen at sea.
Nautical flags were originally used in ancient military encounters where flags signaled other fleet members to take specific actions. Early flag communications were limited; the primary use was to signal the need for a conference where more detailed instruction could then be provided.
In the mid-1700s, more elaborate signals were developed during Anglo-Dutch naval wars, which resulted in the Royal Navy’s Permanent Fighting Instructions comprising 45 mixed messages using 11 flags.
In 1738, Mahe' de la Bourdonniase, a French officer, developed the first numerical flag code, which served as the basis for later flag-hoist signaling.
The numbering system vastly increased the combinations of communications a ship could make to 1,000 using three flags.
Richard Earl Howe, First Lord of the Admiralty in 1783, contributed by revising the French system to include repeater pennants as well as control flags.
These modifications led to the 1799 Signal Book for Ships of War, which broadcasted use of individual flag designs that were used by the Royal Navy through the Napoleonic Wars and War of 1912.
The system expanded further with Popham’s Telegraphic Signals or Marine Vocabulary to include 6,000 phrases and 60,000 words.
The United States first numerical code system, Instructions, Signals, and Explanations Ordered for the United States Fleet, was published in 1797.
The first commercial book of signals, Code of Signals for the Merchant Service, was published in 1817 by Captain Frederick Marryat of the Royal Navy. J.R. Parker’s American Signal Book for the Use of Vessels Employed in the United States Naval, Revenue, and Merchant Service was created for government use in non-tactical communications.
Parker revised the signal book until 1856, as technological advances had rendered such a signal system obsolete.
The British Board of Trade then began creating an improved code, which would come to be known as the International Code of Signals.
Having nothing to do with code signals but being one of my favorite sea shanty songs, and needing more sentences to finish the code…
What do you do with a drunken sailor,
What do you do with a drunken sailor,
What do you do with a drunken sailor,
Early in the morning.
Put him at the wheel of an Exxon tanker,
Put him at the wheel of an Exxon tanker,
Put him at the wheel of an Exxon tanker,
Early in the morning.
Way hey and up she rises, Way hey and up she rises, Way hey and up she rises.......,
Early in the morning!
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