---

This document lists most of the call signs assigned to ships of the RCN past and present.

General

With the exception of a few amateur stations, the "ether" was occupied by ship and coastal stations from 1900 until the 1920's. Ship and coastal stations used two letter call signs  from 1900 until the end of 1907, then three letter call signs started on January 1, 1908. Four letter call sign began to appear about 1923.

INT C/S is the international call sign or (signal letters as they were known in the navy) assigned to Canada by the International Telecommunication Union from blocks of call signs allocated to Canada.

 The "Voice Call Sign" used between warships only. Not just between Canadian warships, but when working with any warship from any other nation.

Collective Call Signs

The collective call sign was created during the 1920's. The collective call sign made it possible to contact all the ships within a fleet or to contact a ship within a fleet. The RCN did not use a collective call sign until after World War II when the CGNS call sign of HMCS REVELSTOKE was changed to CZCM. The CGNS call sign became the RCN collective call sign as an easy means of remembering the call sign; Canadian Government Naval Ship. The CGNS call sign was the one used more than the other Canadian collective signs. If one had a message for all ships within a fleet they simply broadcast the message under that fleets collective call sign. If a ship wanted to contact any ship within a fleet they simply called that fleets collective call sign and a ship within that fleet should have answered that ships call. In other words, CGNS was the same as saying "All Ships of the Royal Canadian Navy" or "Any Ship of the Royal Canadian Navy" depending on how it was used. Halifax Radio CFH and Vancouver Radio CKN made a lot of their broadcasts with the CGNS call sign meaning "All Ships of the Royal Canadian Navy".

If a ship with call sign ABCD wanted to contact a Canadian Naval Ship for any reason he could do so by simply transmitting CGNS de ABCD on the calling frequency. Any Canadian Naval Ship should have answered his call. There were a great many collective call signs in use during the "heyday" of CW. One could hear them in the traffic lists of many coast stations. The coast station transmitting the collective call sign would transmit the message on termination of the traffic list or at a scheduled time. One could hear ships calling the collective call sign of a fleet or company on the calling frequencies. The ship calling wanted help or information from a ship within that fleet. It could be a sister ship within his own fleet or any one of many possibilities. The companies that handled the radio accounts in merchant ships had collective call signs and one could hear one of those calls often.

WWII Collective Call Signs

Ships:

Ships and Auxiliary Vessels Operating from St. John's, Newfoundland .. CGKZ
Ships and Auxiliary Vessels Operating from Sydney, Nova Scotia .. CGKX
Ships and Auxiliary Vessels Operating from Saint John, New Brunswick .. CGWV
Ships and Auxiliary Vessels Operating from Shelburne, Nova Scotia .. CGWX
Ships and Auxiliary Vessels Operating from Gaspe, Quebec .. CGWY
Ships and Auxiliary Vessels Operating from Quebec, Quebec .. CGWZ
All Auxiliary Vessels West Coast .. CGKT
All Fishermen's Reserve Vessels, West Coast .. CGKV
W/T Guard Ship, St. John's, Newfoundland .. CGKY

Officers, Establishments and Escorts.

N.S.H.Q. Ottawa .. CYTF
C.O.A.C. Halifax .. CYTG
F.O.N.F. St. John's, Newfoundland .. CYTJ
Capt. "D" St. John's, Newfoundland .. CYTK
Capt. "D" Halifax, Nova Scotia .. CYTL

S.O. Nfld. Escort Force.................................CYTM
S.O. of Escort Group No. 14 (N.E.F.)..........CYTN
             Escort Group No. 14 (N.E.F.)..........CYTP
S.O. of Escort Group No. 15 (N.E.F.)..........CYTQ
             Escort Group No. 15 (N.E.F.)..........CYTR
S.O. of Escort Group No. 16 (N.E.F.)..........CYTS
             Escort Group No. 16 (N.E.F.)..........CYTV
S.O. of Escort Group No. 17 (N.E.F.)..........CYTW
             Escort Group No. 17 (N.E.F.)..........CYTX
S.O. of Escort Group No. 18 (N.E.F.)..........CYTZ
             Escort Group No. 18 (N.E.F.)..........CYVB
S.O. of Escort Group No. 19 (N.E.F.)..........CYVD
             Escort Group No. 19 (N.E.F.)..........CYVF
S.O. of Escort Group No. 20 (N.E.F.)..........CYVG
             Escort Group No. 20 (N.E.F.)..........CYVJ
S.O. of Escort Group No. 21 (N.E.F.)..........CYVK
             Escort Group No. 21 (N.E.F.)..........CYVL
S.O. of Escort Group No. 22 (N.E.F.)..........CYVM
             Escort Group No. 22 (N.E.F.)..........CYVN
S.O. of Escort Group No. 23 (N.E.F.)..........CYVP
             Escort Group No. 23 (N.E.F.)..........CYVQ
S.O. of Escort Group No. 24 (N.E.F.)..........CYVR
             Escort Group No. 24 (N.E.F.)..........CYVS
S.O. of Escort Group No. 25 (N.E.F.)..........CYVT
             Escort Group No. 25 (N.E.F.)..........CYVW

Call Sign Assignments

Some of the World War II Canadian naval ships that recommissioned in the post war period had their call sign changed for some unknown reason. Yet others retained their original call sign assigned during World War II until they were scrapped after serving for over twenty years. Some fomer RN ships retained their British call signs when they were in service with the RCN.

Some of the call signs of ships that were lost during the war were reassigned as soon as possible. The CGBN and CYRF call signs are two examples. When HMCS Ypres was lost her CGBN call sign was reassigned to HMC ML094. The CGBN call sign has been the call sign of the heavy icebreaker Louis S. St. Laurent since she entered service in 1967. When HMCS Charlottetown was lost her CYRF call sign was reassigned to HMCS Swansea. Swansea was assigned the CYRF call sign until she paid off last on October 14th, 1966.

Pendant vs Pennant

Sometimes there is confusion between the words "Pendant" and  "Pennant". This extract  from Chapter Six of a forthcoming book by David J Freeman, "RCN Ship Badges & Insignia, 1910 to 1946" should set the record straight. [used with permission of the author.]

"The term pendant - pronounced pennant – is simply a tapering flag, just like a pennant.   In the world of naval communications, however, there were differences. The RN signal system contained not only alphabetical and special flags, but also “numeral flags” , "pennants" and “numbered pendants.”  The latter were a series of tapered pennants: ten were numbers (0 to 9) and 12 others had special meanings. These were the flags flown by a warship to indicate her assigned number. Early in 1914, just before the start of the First World War, British destroyers were ordered to paint their pendant numbers on their hulls.  Prior to this, these signal pendants were hard to see through the smoke and spray.  The word ‘pendant’ followed the numbers down to the ship’s side."

Don Wagner, CTRC USN (Ret'd) explains the difference between flags and pennants. "Flags are nearly square or rectangular while a pennant is tapered to a point ( i.e. Emergency Pennant or command pennants). Sometimes, the very tip of the point is chopped off square (i.e. Corpen pennant). Merchant ships do not use number flags like those carried aboard Allied naval ships (0 - 9). Naval vessels carry both numeral "flags and pennants" so they are able to communicated with merchantmen. The numeral flags have no resemblance to numeral pennants  (colors and patterns are completely different).

In the convoys of WWII where only merchantmen were communicating with each other, the visual signals used for communication came from Hydrographic Office publications and in this case it would be HO-87. Where it was strictly Allied naval operations (where no civilian merchantmen were involved) visual and radiotelephone signals came from the Allied Tactical Publications (ATPs). If I remember the number correctly, ACP-175 which I think was carried in radio offices as well as on the  signal bridges of vessels".

Common Acronyms

ACP - Allied Communications Publication(s)
ATP - Allied Tactical Publication(s)
JANAP - Joint Army Navy Air Force Publication(s)

Other Call Signs

There were other call signs that were used by many ships. These were known as the NATO Basic Call Signs and were always encoded whenever they were used. This made it more difficult for the Russians to determine out who was in the fleet during the Cold War. Encoding was necessary whenever there were major NATO exercises as the Allied fleet was constantly shadowed by Russian ELINT (Electronic Intelligence Gathering) ships disguised as fishing trawlers. Call signs for HMC ships were published in JANAP 119. Today this publication is known as ACP 176.

The Halifax Class Patrol Frigates were initially assigned calls in the format CHAx, however, this had to be changed to a CGAx format when it was discovered that there were duplications in call signs.

Examination Vessels

During WWII,  all major Canadian harbours had a vessel stationed in the harbour entrance. Their purpose was to board each and every ship that approached the harbour entrance and verify credentials.

The following vessels (with their call signs) officially bore the title of an "Examination Vessel" :

CGDB         ANDREE DUPRE
CGPX         ADVERSUS
CGPS          CHALEUR
CGPL          FLEUR DE LIS
CGSR          FRENCH
CGFM         MALASPINA
CGDR         MACSIN
CGLX         MONT JOLI

These were small vessels rounded up at the outbreak of the war specifically for this purpose. Several were from the Marine Section of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

SHIP LISTINGS WITH CALL SIGNS AND PENNANTS

A - B	C	D - E	F - G	H	I - J - K - L
M - N - O	P - Q - R	Sa to Sp	Sr to Sz	T-U	V - W - X - Y - Z

Many of the call signs from the WWII era came from:

1) BR619 Pendant lists 1942. Part II, Decode, Section B, Harbour (i), Ships, Establishments and Signal Stations, at home and abroad, table B. Amended from 1 Feb 1943 to 14 Dec 1944. Admiralty Library, Portsmouth, call no Ec 181/ix Photo Copied in part 21 Sep 2004.

2) Department of National Defence, Naval Service Headquarters, 30th, January, 1943  (and also May 1944) Canadian Confidential Naval Orders 125 - 127.

Many thanks are extended to Spud Roscoe of Halifax, Nova Scotia who provided a significant amount of material in order to compile this list plus his assistance in proof reading. Every effort has been made to get this listing as accurate as possible but there could be errors in the source material. Any missing information or corrections are most welcomed.

TYPES OF SHIPS

PENDANT PREFIX	DESCRIPTION
AG	General Purpose Auxiliary Vessel
AGH	Hydrographic Survey Vessel
AGOR	Oceanographic ship for short. Stands for Atlantic Group Oceanographic Research.
AGS	Survey Ship - A ship 40 metres or more which is employed to conduct hydrographic surveys and limited oceanographic surveys.
AGSC	Survey Ship, Coastal  - A ship employed in the same function as an AGS but only in coastal waters.
AKS	Stores Ship - A  ship 40 metres or more used to provide supplies and services.
ALC	Corvette
AN	Net laying ship
ANL	Cable/Net Laying Ship - auxiliary equipped for cable or net laying.
AOR	Replenishment oiler
AOC	Coastal Oiler
AOTL	Small Oiler, Transport
ARE	Auxiliary escort repair ship
ASL	Small Submarine Tender
ATA	Tug (sea going)
AW	Arctic patrol (icebreaker)
BCCPS	Bay Class Coastal Patrol Ship
CCL	Light cruiser
CLB	Cruiser
CMC	???
CVL	Light fleet carrier
DD	Destroyer.  A ship capable of high speed operations at sea against surface ships, submarines and aircraft.
DE	Ocean Escort. A ship capable of medium speed operations at sea in defence of convoys. In 1963, all FFE's became DE's.
DDE	Destroyer Escort. - A ship capable of high/medium speed in offensive operations at sea against submarines and capable of limited self defence against aircraft and surface craft.
DDG	Guided-missile Destroyer.
DDH	Destroyer Escort with helicopter
DDR	Radar Picket Destroyer
FFE	Prestonian Class A/S Frigate
FFH	Halifax Class Patrol Frigate
FHE	Fast Hydrofoil Escort
FSE	Coastal escort
HSL	High Speed Launch
MCA	Auxiliary coastal minesweeper
MCB	Minesweeper Coastal Bay (class)
MCDV	Maritime Coastal Defence Vessel
MSA	Mine Countermeasures Auxiliary Vessel
NPC	Controlled minelayer
PB	Patrol Boat
PC	Coastal Escort - a ship capable of medium speed operations in coastal waters in anti-submarine patrols and escort of convoys.
PCS	A/S patrol craft (sub chaser).
PCT	Patrol Craft Training Vessels -  Orca Class
PFL	Patrol Escort (Small). Assigned to Bay class
PRE	Rescue launch
QW	Sailing yacht
RML	Aircraft carrier
RRSM	Fleet carrier, light
SS	Submarine
YAC	Yacht
YAG	Yard Auxiliary General vessel  [3]
YDT	Diving Tender
YFL	Launch
YMG	Gate vessel. Gate vessels were YMG's but ended their careers as a YNG's.
YMT	Diving tender
YNG	Gate Vessel
YPT	Torpedo Retriever
YTB	Harbour tug, large
YTL	Harbour tug, small
YTM	Harbour tug
YTR	Fire/Rescue Boat, Small

 Other References:

 
1) Spud Roscoe <spudroscoe(at)eastlink.ca>
2) Some descriptions referenced via STANAG 1166,  Standard Ship Designator System.
3) Naval General Order 2.06, promulgated under PS No. Gen 39/63
4) YAG was the eventual designation for the 75 ft wooden passenger ferries built during the Second World War and originally
     called harbour craft, e.g. HC  326.  After the war they were re-designated as yard craft, YC.  Then they all received other
     designations depending on function: YFB, YBL, YFL and then YAG.
5) Dave Freeman <djfreeman(at)shaw.ca>
6) Don Wagner, CTRC USN (Ret'd)  <navwags(at)earthlink.net>
7) Ray White <legerwhite(at)rogers.com>

Oct 17/10