ZWC is one of the codes I became very familiar with during my stint as a Naval Signalman. While at sea, any signal passed from ship to ship was taken as From the Senior Officer onboard (usually the Commanding Officer) to the Senior Officer. It did make it a bit harder to deal with when you forgot that the Admiral was aboard but doo doo does happen.
The ZWC code meant the signal was operator to operator – we could chat about anything and it would go no where. The standing operating procedure in the Canadian Navy was that all junior signalman would practice their semaphore skills whenever ships would do a RAS with another vessel.
Semaphore is a very old method of passing signals using the angle of your arms to delineate letters. See here for the lexicon of semaphore. With a whole lot of practice, I was able to send and receive at a very respectable rate.
When I joined the RCN in 1987, females were just being permitted to join in the hard sea trades. I struck up a friendship with one of the ladies in my first trade course and when we graduated, she was posted to our supply vessel as I was posted to my first ship, HMCS Quappelle.
My first major trip was to Ecuador, 1989. On the way home, we were scheduled to stop in Los Angles. The day before we arrived at LA, we were scheduled to do a RAS with our supply ship. When our ships were connected the order was to get out there and practice your semaphore, so I did.
ME – waving my flags around giving the calling signal
THEM – C (the answering signal)
ME – ZWC BT INT LUCY BT K (operator to operator, where is Lucy?)
THEM – AS AR (wait)
I waited
LUCY – BT DE LUCY INT BT K (this is Lucy, what do you want)
I then launch into a blistering torrent of saying hi, how are you, wanna go on a date. She watches me and comes back with Who the hell are you? After 10 minutes of back and forth I remember that I had grown a beard and was thus unrecognisable to her. Once I cleared up exactly who I was she got all happy and said oh yes, lets make it a date.. We chatted for another 10 minutes and I signed off with a See you later.
I put my semaphore wands in my back pocket and walked toward the bridge. I noticed that a lot of people had been watching my conversation with something akin to awe. As I approached the bridge, the Capitan pulled me aside and said
“Johno, this (holding his arms out widely in semaphore position) is Unclassified. This (holding his hands together closely in semaphore position) is for personal traffic.”
My only response discovering that the Capitan could read semaphore was “Yes Sir” as my face went beet red.
Ah well, all is well that ends well. I did have that date, and was immediately known as the first signalman to ask another signalman on a legitimate date in close to 40 years.
John Looks Out On Life 