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The International Code of Signals (INTERCO) is an international system of signals and codes for use by vessels to communicate important messages regarding safety of navigation and related matters. Signals can be sent by flaghoist , signal lamp ("blinker"), flag semaphore , radiotelegraphy, and radiotelephony.
Flag signals can mean any of various methods of using flags or pennants to send signals. Flags may have individual significance as signals, or two or more flags may be manipulated so that their relative positions convey symbols. Flag signals allowed communication at a distance before the invention of radio and are still used especially in ...
Wigwag flags being carried by the Signal Corps while extending a telegraph line at Manila during the Spanish–American War in 1898 The Civil War was the high point of the use of wigwag, but there were some other campaigns that included flag signalmen, mainly against Native Americans.
The advent of distinctive signals led to the formation of the signal corps, a group specialized in the tactics of military communications. The signal corps evolved into a distinctive occupation where the signaller became a highly technical job dealing with all available communications methods including civil ones.
A US Navy crewman signals the letter 'U' using flag semaphore during an underway replenishment exercise (2005). Flag semaphore (from the Ancient Greek σῆμα (sêma) 'sign' and - φέρω (-phero) '-bearer' [1]) is a semaphore system conveying information at a distance by means of visual signals with hand-held flags, rods, disks, paddles, or occasionally bare or gloved hands.
A Canadian ship flying 'Bravo Zulu'. According to the U.S. Navy "Navy Data" reference website: "The term BRAVO ZULU originates from the Allied Tactical Publication 1 (ATP 1), [2] an Allied military maritime tactical signals publication, which in the aggregate is For Official Use Only (FOUO), now known in the U.S. Department of Defense as Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI), and can also ...
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Wigwag achieved this by using a large flag—a single flag can be held with both hands unlike flag semaphore which has a flag in each hand—and using motions rather than positions as its symbols since motions are more easily seen. It was invented by US Army surgeon Albert J. Myer in the 1850s who later became the first head of the Signal Corps.