[Milsurplus] PT Boat Callsigns

[Mike Morrow]

Sam wrote:

> http://www.navsource.org/archives/12/05190.htm
>
> They all have Nan callsigns.

More directly, they have four-character alphabetic call signs beginnig with N.

Almost all USN vessels have, for more than 80 years.  Like:
NUBC - USS Daniel Boone SSBN-629 (my sub)
NBQK - USS Intrepid CVS-11 (my ship)
NWFM - USS Sawfish SS-276 (my dad's sub in 1944)

Even oddities:
NWBE - USS Los Alamos AFDB-7 (floating dry dock)
NECZ - YT-9 (harbor tug built in 1903)
NEPR - USS Constellation IX-20 (sailing ship)
NAPJ - USS Constitution IX-21 (sailing ship)

NERM - USS Los Angeles ZR-3 (rigid airship)  Civil aircraft of that
       era had five-character alphabetic calls starting with K.

So just about anything USN had one of the 17576 possible Nxxx calls.

But they were almost never used...certainly not for voice communications.
It's a waste for the navsource.org website to display any phonetic
alphabet representation for a ship's call letters be it in the WWII system
(N = nan) or current (N = nancy).

On the extremely rare occasions that I as OOD communicated by voice from
my SSBN to another unit, tactical call signs were used.  Our call NUBC was
without significance...it was never used or cited.

I'm certain the same was true of PT boats in WWII.

Mike / KK5F