abbreviation for 'military' hours..

[J. Eulenberg]

I have a war diary from a US Naval Ship (1943).  The terms are simply
written, as James Laundau noted: 2300 (or 800-1200).

When I am writing my own abbreviations (for convenience), I use hr or hrs,
the latter for pluralization.

Julia Niebuhr Eulenberg <eulenbrg at u.washington.edu>

On Mon, 11 Aug 2003, James A. Landau wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "James A. Landau" <JJJRLandau at AOL.COM>
> Subject:      abbreviation for 'military' hours..
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I was asked the following question off-list:
>
> > I'm trying to find a rule for abbreviating 'hours'. .
> >
> > If I were to write that something was to take place at 1400 hours, and
> > wanted to abbreviate for use in a table, what is the preferred
> > abbreviation for hours?  I've seen:  hrs.; hr.; and h.  And, I've seen
> > the variations both with and without a period following the
> > abbreviation.
>
> It seems to me that there is no sich animal.
>
> Verbally someone in the US Armed Forces would say /fourteen hundred hours/
> for two PM.  In writing the person would write "1400" and leave it at that.
I don't recall seeing the word "hours" either written out or abbreviated
when someone was specifying time in writing in the so-called "military
style".
>
> From the glossary of the "AIM" (Charles F. Spence, ed.  _Aeronautical
> Information Manual_  New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003, ISBN 0-07-139504-0):
>
> <quote>
> Time Group.  Four digits representing the hour and minutes from the
> Coordinated Univeral Time (UTC) clock.  FAA uses UTC for all operations.
The term "ZULU" may be used to denote UTC.  The word "local" or the time
zone equivalent shall be used to denote local when local time is given
during radio and telephone communications.  When written, a time zone
designator is used to indicate local time; e.g. "0205M" (Mountain).  The
local time may be based on the 24-hour
> clock system.  The day begins at 0000 and ends at 2359.
> </quote>
>
>             James A. Landau
>             systems engineer
>             FAA Technical Center (ACB-510/BCI)
>             Atlantic City Int'l Airport   NJ   08405   USA
>