The Military Alphabet is a phonetic alphabet. A phonetic alphabet is a list of words used to identify letters in a message transmitted by radio or telephone. Spoken words from an approved list are substituted for letters. For example, the word "Navy" would be "November Alfa Victor Yankee" when spelled in the phonetic alphabet. This practice helps to prevent confusion between similar sounding letters, such as "m" and "n", and to clarify communications that may be garbled during transmission.
The words chosen to represent some letters have changed since the phonetic alphabet was introduced. When these changes occur, they are made by international agreement. The current phonetic alphabet was adopted in 1957.
Military Phonetic Alphabet
Letter 1913 1927 1938 World War II 1957-PresentA Able Affirmative Afirm Afirm (Able) Alfa
B Boy Baker Baker Baker Bravo
C Cast Cast Cast Charlie Charlie
D Dog Dog Dog Dog Delta
E Easy Easy Easy Easy Echo
F Fox Fox Fox Fox Foxtrot
G George George George George Golf
H Have Hypo Hypo How Hotel
I Item Interrogatory Int Int (Item) India
J Jig Jig Jig Jig Juliete
K King King King King Kilo
L Love Love Love Love Lima
M Mike Mike Mike Mike Mike
N Nan Negative Negat Negat (Nan) November
O Oboe Option Option Option (Oboe) Oscar
P Pup Preparatory Prep Prep (Peter) Papa
Q Quack Quack Queen Queen Quebec
R Rush Roger Roger Roger Romeo
S Sail Sail Sail Sugar Sierra
T Tare Tare Tare Tare Tango
U Unit Unit Unit Uncle Uniform
V Vice Vice Victor Victor Victor
W Watch William William William Whiskey
X X-ray X-ray X-ray X-ray X-ray
Y Yoke Yoke Yoke Yoke Yankee
Z Zed Zed Zed Zebra Zulu
