Companies, troops, and batteries have long been designated by letters of the alphabet, such as the famous E Co. The US Military use the NATO alphabet, in which ‘A’ is “Alfa”. But I keep seeing references in print to “Alpha Company”. Is Alpha actually the official name of these units, or are the writers and their editors confused?
NATO is “alfa.” The print uses are either 1) wrong, 2) spelled wrong, or 3) using the old alphabet. It’s changed quite a bit since the days of Cheech & Chong.
The ALPHA spelling is in regular use.
https://home.army.mil/wood/units-tenants/USACBRNS/CBRN_units/3CMBDE/3-10INBN/ACo
https://www.2ndmardiv.marines.mil/Units/2nd-Reconnaissance-BN/Alpha-Company/
But also ALFA
In WW2 through the early 1950s the USA used the old “Able Baker” alphabet– hence “Easy” Company– which was later replaced by the NATO “Alpha Bravo”. You see the changeover in the names of nuclear test shots.
I was A Battery, Student Battalion, The School Brigade. Ft Bliss in 1980. IIRC it was spelled Alpha. No one called it Alpha Battery…, it was always A Battery.
The “alpha” stuff is actually a phonetic radio alphabet; at least that is the context where I first learned it. So “alpha” = A, bravo = B and so on. It’s not the code words themselves, or spelling variations thereof, that are significant.
Is the question about the different spelling? Or the pronunciation? Or how it might be written in official orders? It’s Company A, but pronounced “alpha” even though the NATO spelling is “alfa.”
When quoting someone, say, a captain, “Company Alfa has a successful ARTEP,” speaking phonetically the “A,” will be written in standard English, which is “alpha.” Cappy could have said “Company A” for the benefit of the journalist, but we all tend to default to industry lingo unless we’re being careful.
The official name for A company is A company. On properly formatted correspondence it would not be “alpha” or “alfa” just A. When you get orders assigning you to a company it will say A co. 2/227th AVN BN (one of my old units).
When spelled out I have never seen alpha spelled alfa since alfa isn’t a word in English.
If you wanted to spell out the name of the letter for some reason, in English it is alpha, in Spanish it’s alfa, in Russian it’s альфа, in Greek ἄλφα, etc. An “international” table of such codewords may not use the PH digraph since it’s less phonemic if your target audience does not necessarily speak English.
fun fact: the NATO-reported Alpha/Alfa class Soviet attack submarine was actually called Lyra. You see the letters are not supposed to be real names.
Odd. 22 years in the Army, and I’ve never seen it spelled “alfa”. It’s always “Alpha”.
21 years as a Navy radioman, and it was always “Alfa” in manuals, including both NTPs (Navy Telecommunications Publications) and ATPs (Allied Telecommunications Publications).
Oh, I have no doubts. The Army also thinks L is “local” time zone, though it should be J. The Army thinks cache is pronounced “cashay”, route rhymes with gout, compasses don’t point north because of an iron deposit in Hudson Bay… I could go on. I’m just amazed I never caught the alfa/alpha thing.
So in answer to the old discussion of where are all the A and B -cell batteries: they’re in the artillery. 
23 years in the Seabees. Our battalions were structured similar to Army and Marine battalions. Typically, there was Alfa, Bravo, Charlie and Delta, each of which contained specific construction trades. There was also a Headquarters Company, which for some reason was not designated as Hotel.
The US Army, liking to keep things simple (hah), decided it’s not the headquarters company. It’s the Headquarters and Headquarters Company (HHC).
The headquarters contains a bunch of officers that often outrank the company commander who is usually a captain. Calling it HHC shows its unique nature of having both staff and regular soldiers. The battalion executive officer (or chief of staff for higher level units) controls the headquarters staff while the HHC commander commands the soldiers.
Is there an HHC company commander, too, or does the battalion XO fill that role?
Presumably, yes (there is a company commander). Although I gather it’s not among the most important/prestigious jobs, because during the recent unpleasantness in Iraq and Afghanistan, they would often fill those billets with individual augmentees from the Navy (sometimes volunteers, but often not). I could have been one—might have—if I didn’t end up lucking into a job as an advisor to the Iraqi Navy.
There is a company commander usually a captain (there are exceptions). At the battalion level the XO is a major. He runs the staff. The heads of the staff sections run their sections on a day to day basis. The HHC commander handles everything else for the troops like common skills training, daily formations, PT. It isn’t an enviable position. They have to walk the line between dealing with the higher ranking staff and handling the needs of the troops. It’s often given to a senior captain who already had command time in a line unit.
I’ve never seen that except in joint units. I was deployed twice into joint units. All the command was army but other services filled slots.
Stupid memory- once when I was in basic and we were leaving a classroom, the drill sergeants had us yelling Alpha! Alpha! Alpha! as if to instill spirit or pride or something. Alpha! Alpha! Alpha! repeated rapidly just sounds like fal fal fal, so I repeated that as fast as I could. I was able to slow it down to Alpha when I was checked at the door.