Artifact Friday: Blinker Light Trainer/Morse Code

Morse code is a long-taught language throughout the US military. It was crucial during times of hidden communication behind enemy lines, tenuous moments, and even through cameras. A blinker light trainer from World War II, also known as a code pocket trainer, was a lightweight Morse code trainer.

Here in our collection, this Morse code pocket trainer was a small, lightweight, cardboard Morse code trainer that was portable and made learning Morse code easier for U.S. Navy personnel. This was mainly used for ship-to-ship signaling, which, when stimulated, would signal projector lights. This easy signalling was an easy and quick way for Navy personnel to identify Morse code signals. Even better, on the backside of the pocket trainer was an international Morse code chart with alphabet letters and numbers.

While these pocket trainers were easy and quick to use for in-field training, there were larger training tools for communication, like the instrugraph machine. The instrugraph machine was a paper-based electromechanical machine that was used from 1920 to 1983 to teach Morse code. This machine was much harder to teach in the field and required much more space, time, and handiwork to use.

The appeal of these pocket trainers was how quickly and easily they could be used to train soldiers in Morse code. Morse code remains a reliable form of communication that, all the while, is still taught and comes into practice today.