Pirate Flag – Warm and Calaveras: Malvinas to Iraq

Crossbones, black with skull and crossbones below, is the odd symbol of the British submarine force by a small joke.

In the early twentieth century, the submarine was being introduced to the most advanced military and its modus operandi stealth antipathies generated some of the naval establishment. So, Admiral Sir Arthur Wilson, who retired as head of the British Army (First Sea Lord) suggested that divers who were captured in wartime should not be considered worthy opponents tired, but directly “hung as pirates” .

A few years later, in 1914, just started the First World War, the submarine E9, led by Lieutenant Max Horton sank the German cruiser SMS Hela. With a touch of acid humor, Horton ordered make a pirate flag and enter luciéndola port.

Other submarine commanders then copied the audacity, which became the symbol of a mission of war had had a fruitful end.

Lieutenant Horton was also the first to paint various symbols in the “Jolly Roger” (its English name), so that, inter alia, who came to receive the submarine might know why the mission was successful.

So, after the experience in the Great War and the early years of the Second World War, were profiling certain unofficial rules for the use of the pirate flag.

It “established” that the flag should be attached to a submarine periscope when entering a port, and withdrawing the first night there. Also, signs were unified action of the submarine. For example, a red bar on a flag means a sunken warship, a white, a merchant; stars indicate action with guns, a dagger, push or pull operations command or the like, a mine, mining operations. The most extravagant was also, as the head of a ram, a rammed.

Worth pointing out that from the beginning there were protests from those who felt that the flag provides lots of information to prying eyes. However, he ended weighing the moral incentive that gives crews.

However, since 1945 (when the end of World War II) until 1982, no British submarine flag used by pirates.

Unfortunately, the HMS Conqueror who would return to this tradition, to enter the port Scottish logo, containing the silhouette of a ship (the ARA General Belgrano sunk) a dagger by an insert command and an atom, meaning that it was powered by nuclear energy.

Another British submarine also hoisted the Jolly Roger “after the Falklands, HMS Onyx, by an insert command on the outskirts of Port Stanley, even though it should be noted that some rumors indicate that roamed the continental coasts.

HMS Sealion also turned his patrol through the South Atlantic waters in 1987, displaying the flag, now with two daggers for insertion and removal operations command. It is important to remember that symbols represent operations against the enemy, can be inferred then, and without much effort, their destination.

HMS Conqueror returned after the Falklands campaign (Faslane, July 3, 1982). Photo: Royal Navy.

HMS Onyx. Photo of M. Lennon

HMS Sealion arriving at Gosport. The Chilean flag indicates that hit a port of that country on the return trip. Photo of Chris Parfitt

HMS Otus entering Gosport. Photo Royal Navy.

HMS Turbulent Plymouth entering the April 16, 2003. Photo Royal Navy.

Fuente: http://www.elsnorkel.com