Flying flags for England
QUESTION How was the Trafalgar signal ‘England expects that every man will do his duty’ relayed during battle? Is it misquoted on Nelson’s column?
Navies use 26 signal flags to make up the letters of the alphabet, plus a further ten for the numbers zero to nine. By combining them, they can be used to spell out words.
However, composing a long sentence would be a lengthy process. The letter e is the most commonly used in english, so lots of e flags would be required, along with a, s and T, as can be deduced from the boardgame scrabble.
Therefore, each flag is assigned a specific meaning that would otherwise require several flags to spell out. The flag for the letter P, the famous Blue Peter, means: ‘i am preparing to leave port.’ The flag for a means: ‘Diver below, proceed at slow speed and with caution.’
Two, three or more flags arranged in a pre-arranged sequence can be used to spell out messages. For example, ‘You are in danger of running aground’ is made up of just two flags, J and L.
The international Code of signals was published in 1857, but in earlier times each nation had its own codes. These would be written down in code books stored on the quarterdeck for easy reference. The code book was kept in a weighted satchel so it could be thrown overboard if it looked as if the enemy was about to capture the ship.
The Royal Navy developed its own flag vocabulary that allowed lengthy signals to be sent using the fewest number of flags. each flag was assigned a number rather than a letter.
This allocation of numbers was itself a code that could be changed. With up to three flags used, the vocabulary consisted of 1,108 words or parts of words.
in the case of the ‘england expects’ message, the signal was made up of the flags for 253, 269, 863, 261, 471, 958, 220, 370, 4, 21, 19 and 24. To avoid confusion, each group was raised on a separate ‘lift’ (a single rope) and then lowered before the next word was raised. ships closer to the flagship, HMs victory, relayed the message to ships further away.
The last four groups are the only ones that spell out a word because ‘duty’ didn’t exist in the vocabulary. Nelson had to substitute ‘confides’ in his original text with ‘expects’, as that, too, wasn’t in the vocabulary. in this way, a message of 39 letters was relayed by 31 flags.
at the base of Nelson’s Column, the four sides display brass plaques depicting the admiral’s most famous battles.
Below the one depicting Trafalgar on October 21, 1805, is the famous quote. However, ‘that’ is omitted so the rest of the message can fit the space available.
Bob Cubitt, Northampton.
QUESTION Why did Huey Lewis sue Ghostbusters singer Ray Parker Jr?
IN 1984, Huey Lewis and The News were approached by Columbia Pictures to contribute to the soundtrack of Ghostbusters. They turned it down because they had committed to providing music for Back To The Future.
Ray Parker Jr provided the Ghostbusters theme, but Lewis and co-writer Chris Hayes claimed it was substantially similar to their song i Want a New Drug. The matter was settled out of court with Columbia Pictures.
The following year Back To The Future was a hit movie, and Huey Lewis and The News’s song The Power Of Love was No. 1 around the world.
This was not the end of the story. On vH1’s Behind The Music series in 2001, Lewis discussed the lawsuit.
‘The offensive part was not so much that Ray Parker Jr had ripped this song off,’ he said.
‘it was kind of symbolic of an industry that wants something — they wanted our wave and they wanted to buy it . . . it’s not for sale . . . in the end, i suppose they were right. i suppose it was for sale, because, basically, they bought it.’
Parker counter-sued. The lawsuit filed at Los angeles superior Court stated the confidentiality agreement was ‘directly related to [Parker’s] comfort, happiness and welfare’ and that Lewis’s comments were ‘inflammatory and disparaging’ and had caused Parker emotional distress.
it resulted in a further out-ofcourt settlement.
L. B. Lewis, Uttoxeter, Staffs.
QUESTION Who designed the Siegfried Line?
THE Westwall chain of fortifications on the German borders with the Netherlands and switzerland was designed by engineer Fritz Todt.
siegfried was a powerful symbol in the pre-war German Republic when the versailles Treaty kept the country partially disarmed. Opera audiences would go wild at the scene in Richard Wagner’s siegfried where the hero forges the German sword. Built between 1938 and 1940, the fortifications stretched 390 miles. The line comprised more than 18,000 bunkers, tunnels and tank traps.
Todt combined engineering expertise and National socialist fanaticism, being a Nazi party member since 1923.
He oversaw more than 2,000 miles of Autobahn construction through his civil engineering firm, Organisation Todt.
Forced labour was used to build the siegfried Line. after the fall of France, the works were stripped of anything that could be re-used in the construction of the atlantic Wall on the French coast.
after Todt was killed in an air crash in 1942, Hitler ally albert speer became head of his firm. But by 1944, he had been sidelined in favour of Franz Xaver Dorsch. as the allies advanced, Dorsch oversaw the rebuilding of the siegfried Line.
He avoided prosecution after the war, having been commissioned by the U.s. army to write a 1,000-page study of Organisation Todt, published in 1947.
He established the Dorsch Consult engineering firm in 1951. This became Dorsch Gruppe in 2006, and today is Germany’s largest independent planning and consulting company.
Patrick Emery, Clitheroe, Lancs.