A look back to what dear old BUNTS was doing at the turn of the century [apart from sunning himself on the flag deck] as we said our farewell to Queen Victoria and welcomed to the Throne, King Edward VII.
Apart from the flags he [Bunts] hoisted, the machine semaphore or hand flag semaphore he transmitted and received and the lantern machines he used to flash International Morse code signals to ships more distant, what supplementary codes did he use for Semaphore on the flag deck, and others for flashing light, which were not necessarily invented by Samuel Morse, but were used in the R.N., both on the flag deck and in the wireless office?
| In the pdf text which follows, I have left out "Plate P.373" which is reproduce here |
Place your mouse in the blue top band to drag the picture to where you want it. |
In the case of semaphore, three of the additional [or supplementary] signs became an integral part of the Morse code, namely 'II' meaning a short break; 'AAA' meaning a full stop and 'KK' continuing to mean parenthesis, although later on, 'KN' was used to open the parenthesis [open bracket] and 'KK' was used to close it. The Morse code for a comma became 'MIM'. In flashing, the use of 'pendants' were mostly unique to the visual signalling branch, but some, were used also in the wireless office for normal traffic work. These were 'BT' meaning a long break, sometimes referred to as "Nelson's Sign" BT meaning Burnham Thorpe, Nelson's village birth place in Norfolk; 'IMI' same use i.e., repeat; 'INT' same use i.e., interrogative. Under 'specials' only one sign became of use in the Morse code and that was 'AF' as one group meaning quotation marks.
Here then is Flag and Signalling c.1901 from the Seamanship Manual of that time.