"AAA?" Topic

Was the expression TripleA (AAA) used in WW2?

DBDD

Yes, by the US. I believe that was the official designation of anti-aircraft units.

Edit: AAA was. Whether they called it "triple A", IDK.

I suspect it stands for anti-aircraft artillery.

I seem to recall the AA term being more widely used for WWII.

Post-war, especially from Vietnam on, AAA seems to be the norm. I always had the impression the third A was for "automatic" and/or rapid fire auto-cannons and MGs too, until writing this just now.

Either could be correct, I guess.

US terminology was indeed Antiaircraft Artillery. I think AAA may well have been spoken as triple A, but it's not apparent from written reports. For units using 40-mm and/or .50-cal weapons the term automatic weapons was appended, so you'd have AAA AW Bns.

I seem to recall that the prefix AAA was a common way of getting a firm at the top of the phone book listings in the 1930s?

AA was the British and Commonwealth term, generally spoken as ack-ack in line with the original phonetic alphabet of the British forces (ack, beer, cork, don being as far as I can recall without looking it up…).

Gary

I'd assumed it was post-war; certainly for the British who always used AA or, as mentioned, Ack-Ack. I was wondering mainly if it was used by the Americans in WW2 – a question inspired by a film on tv which my wife was watching. An American serving in the RAF says "Triple A" and it just didn't feel right for the Second World War.

Thanks for input.

DBDD

Yes, in WWII, AAA, Triple A …

Later after Korea IIRC, the USA started calling Anti-Air Artillery to Air Defense Artillery … And still does AFAIK. But that is really just semantics, it seems to me.

I'm pretty sure Americans used the term "Ack-Ack" as well. Unofficially.