Can you help with maritime flag identification?

I would think that the most logical place to start would be with the Coast Guard or perhaps a Naval base (or museum) near you.

Usually there are one or more amateur (or even professional) historians who really love this stuff and would be happy to help you out.

If there are no nearby groups, perhaps an email to either a Naval or Coast Guard Museum with the images attached would be helpful.

If all else fails, try the History Dept. at Annapolis. Surely the premier service academy which trains our naval officers could steer you in the right direction.

Thanks a bunch! I will work on this in the morning! :)

I did a search and found this site: Flag Identifier . It might work for you.

I just tried it based upon your description and came up empty handed. Maybe you will have better luck.

Any chance of taking a photo of it and uploading it to imgur?

An image would be most helpful.

It’s an interesting question, but not enough info.

Where did your Uncle serve in the Lighthouse service? West Coast, East Coast, Great Lakes? All these use a lot of the same signal and code flags, the U.S. System, but they also have flags unique to their area of service, especially the Great Lakes.

What shape are each one of these flags? Rectangular, square, pennant, or burgee (swallow tail)? This is important in determining whether the flag is a Yacht Club ensign, a letter or numeral signals flag, a warning flag—either weather or danger to navigation, or simply a vanity flag.

I’m assuming your Uncle served during WWII. Flags have changed since then. For example, the storm flag you describe is indeed a storm warning flag, but has long ago been replaced with the square red field with solid black square, or squares, depending on the force of winds expected. I’ve only seen the flag you describe in museums. It may still be used inland. Ibstubro might know about this, as he is a Midwesterner living in the Tornado belt.

I would contact via email the curator at one of the maritime museums on the following sites:

List of maritime museums in the United States

Ten best Maritime Museums in the World

Be sure send pics along with descriptions like the ones you gave above, but also include when and where your Uncle served and the shape of each flag.

The banner might be a vanity flag, a gift from his comrades in service. Each part of it, the seagulls, the stars, etc. may have meaning in maritime tradition. A kind of inside joke, but possibly a decipherable one. Everything has a meaning, but seamen speak their own language and have their own traditional symbology—and it is often different by region.

Good luck and please come back and tell us what you find out.

I will be contacting the maritime museums listed above as the flag identifier brought no good results for me either. Thanks and I will let you know what I find out!

Addendum, not sure how to upload photo. Can sure do that with a little tutorial.

As far as I know you’ll have to use an external site like imgur or flickr to show us a picture here. There are tons of similar sites.