Question about slang " Tango" (=enemy)

[Cohen, Gerald Leonard]

   Today a student asked me how slang "tango" (enemy) arose, a term I had never heard of before. For a possible answerI found the following on the Internet(http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_do_they_come_up_with_the_enemy_nicknames_like_Charlie_Tango_and_Jerry)

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"Tango is again derived from the phonetic alphabet, with Tango being the phonetic equivalent of T. Thus target was shortened to T and then subsequently Tango. Therefore when someone says "Tango down" they are stating target down."

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This sounds convincing, but I thought I'd check it first with ads-l. Can I pass this along to my student with assurance that it's correct? Btw, I don't find this "Tango" in OED 3.

Gerald Cohen

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