Starting (?) in WW1, there have been several phonetic alphabets used in the British Forces (plus another used by the Post Office/British Telecom, and all manner of other unofficial ones).
AFAIK, the "Daddy" of them all was "Ack, Beer, Charlie, Dog....etc" of WW1 (which lingers on to this day as "Ack-Ack"), through "Able, Baker...etc" up to the current "Alpha Bravo.....etc".
The changeover points gave rise to some confusion. An apocryphal tale relates a difficult phone conversation going as follows:
".....Soap say) ...eh? ...Soap !!... Spell it !...Sierra...eh? ... Sierra !...eh?...Spell it! ....Sugar-Item-Easy-Roger....etc!" But to neglect using it when there is any possibility of mishearing invites disaster.
Now what follows is Shawbury legend: it was before my time: I heard it in'65, but it was not current in '55, so it must have happened between those dates. I take up the story (slightly embellished):
It was fairly quiet in Shawbury Tower (they were IIRC, a Diversion for TH and Valley). A "Flash" call came in from Ternhill:
"There's a C-47 just passed us low overhead, wheels down, heading your way. No R/T contact !" Well, not to worry. Another old Dak was no problem.
They scanned the horizon. Over it came this huge fire-breathing swept-wing monster to plank itself down without ceremony on their 6,000 ft. All of which it took up plus the taxiway at the far end, leaving about 18in of tarmac free in front of the front twin wheels, coming to rest with smoking brakes at the end of a mile of rubber streaks, and with about 15 feet of nose out over the grass.
From under this opened a hatch, a ladder came down and then the three occupants:
"How are y'all in lil'old England - long time since Ah was here - when's the next bus into town ?"
Of course it was a B-47. It seems that there had been a catastrophic electrical failure which had taken out all the electrical instruments on the panel; the radio had gone, too. It was on a transatlantic delivery flight into Burtonwood (don't ask me how they came to be running round Shropshire). Low on fuel, Shawbury was the first possible spot they saw after letting down through the overcast. All's well that ends well ?
Well, no, not quite. Shawbury was
hors-de-combat straight away with this monstrous cuckoo in their nest - for they had no means of towing it out, and it couldn't turn round even if they started the engines. Luckily Burtonwood rose to the occasion: next morning a big servicing party turned up. One lot set to work at once, changing tyres, wheels and brakes. Others swarmed aboard and "lightened ship" by unbolting everything which was not essential for flight and not too big to go out through the hatch.
Of course, they had a tug and dolly. So when the servicing parties were finished, and the electicians had traced and fixed the electical problem, they hauled it back to the take-off point, put in the crew and just enough fuel to comfortably get to Burtonwood, stuck on a few JATO rockets, lit the blue paper and retired quickly.
There was an enormous roar, flames and a huge cloud of black smoke. Our overnight guests and their B-47 were literally hurled into the air by sheer brute force, and when the gentle breeze coming down from the "
blue remembered hills" had dispersed the apocalyptic cloud, they were out of sight.
And that's it. Of course it was a perfect story to impress the point on successive ATC Courses during their early R/T lessons - many must remember hearing it there.
Goodnight, everone.
Danny42C.
"Send three-and-fourpence - we're going to a dance"