The S323A was the Cypher Log used by the Royal Canadian Navy for the first couple of years of WWII. It was the practice to have the off-watch officers decrypt incoming messages - a tiresome and thankless task. As the war progressed, this task was then performed by Chief Petty Officers. The  identification markings in the log are as follows:

Can. S. 323a. (Est'd Dec. 1920)
Imp. S. 323a.
50-Dec. 17-20. - Req. 7815

It appears that the original log design  was completed in December 1920 and the first printing many have been started on December 17, 1920. This log was being used by an amateur radio operator as his personal log book and the first entry is dated 1937 so it predates WWII.

Overall view

Spine markings with covers opened up.

Headers on all left hand pages. The rightmost column is "Time of Origin"

Headers on all right hand pages. The name of the ship was to be written between the quotes.

All photos in this table courtesy Spud Roscoe

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Back to Naval Radio Operations - WWII
 

Contributors and Credits:

1) Spud Roscoe <spudroscoe(at)eastlink.ca>
2) R.P. Welland <rpwelland(at)telus.net>

Mar 13/09