| Battleships, Battlecruisers |
| Between the wars, and in World War II,
battleships and battlecruisers were given numbers without letters.
These numbers were never painted on the sides of the ships. |
|
|
| Monitors |
| The four monitors changed in 1940 from the
flag superior I to F.
The two 'Roberts' class monitors completed after the start of the war were also
allocated F. |
|
|
| Cruisers |
| Heavy cruisers and wartime light cruisers
had only numbers: |
| |
Kent class *
Norfolk class
York / Exeter Class
Leander / Perth Class *
Arethusa class
Southampton class
Dido class
Fiji class
Minataur class
|
| * The RAN cruisers did
carry a flag superior – at the beginning of the war I, changed
to D in 1940. |
| The older light cruisers started the war
with flag superior I, changing to D
in 1940: |
| |
Birmingham class
Caledon class
Ceres class
Capetown / Carlisle class
Improved Birmingham / Hawkins class
'D' class
'E' class |
|
|
| Carriers |
| Most aircraft carriers had numbers without
letters. |
| |
HMS COURAGEOUS
HMS GLORIOUS
HMS FURIOUS
HMS EAGLE
HMS ARK ROYAL
Illustrious class
Colossus class (but HMS PIONEER had pennant D.76)
Majestic class
Hermes class |
| However, a few carriers started the war with
I, which was changed to D
in 1940. |
| |
HMS HERMES
HMS ARGUS
HMS UNICORN |
| The following wartime construction aircraft
carriers did have pennant letters, namely flag superior D |
| |
Archer class
Attacker class
Ruler class
Audacious class (HMS IRRESISTIBLE - renamed HMS ARK ROYAL
while still building in 1945 - did not have a letter.)
Gibraltar class |
|
| The only four escort carriers built by the
British during World War II also had flag D superior. |
|
| The seaplane carriers changed in 1940
from flag superior I to D. |
|
|
| Submarines |
| Between the wars the pennant number was the
reverse of the boats (numerical) name or an identifying number followed
by the class letter in the case of a named boat. I.e., numeral pennant
and a flag inferior. The flags used were H
or L for the 'H' and 'L' classes, P
for the 'O' and 'P' classes, R for the
'R' class, F for the 'Thames' class, M
for the 'Porpoise' class, S for the
'S' class, T for the 'T' class, and C
for the 'U' class. |
| Then in 1939 all submarines were allocated
pennant numbers ending with the N (N flag inferior) - the numbers
remained unchanged. |
| In 1940, this was changed to flag N
superior. Again, the numbers themselves remained unchanged |
| Early in the war it was decided that submarines
built (or acquired) during the war would no longer be given names but only
the letter P and a number. (To prevent enemy recognition of new submarines.)
Then in 1942, it was once again decided that all submarines would be named. |
|
|
| Destroyers |
| Historically, pennant numbers were first
used in World War I, when large fleet of destroyers were procured by the
Navy. The letter depended upon the squadron that the destroyer was in,
for example, I, R, N
and H were used. |
| The 'Tribal' class destroyers were originally
allocated flag L but this was changed to
Flag F in December 1938. |
| In 1939, old destroyer leaders of the 'Tribal'
and 'Shakespeare' classes and the old 'R', 'S', 'V', and 'W' destroyers
were allocated D numbers. At the outbreak of World War II
destroyers had flags D, H, F superior to their
numeral pennants. |
| Modern destroyers of the 'J' to 'R' and 'Tribal'
classes were allocated F, G, H, I
and R letters – and flag L used
for escort destroyers building ('Hunt' class) or converting ('V' and 'W' classes). |
| In 1940 flags D
and F were changed to I
and G – war construction was also allotted
the G until the 'T' class, which adopted the flag
letter R. |
| Early wartime construction was allocated
D numbers before names were allocated,
and I was assigned to old monitors. |
|
| Later, D was allocated to all carriers,
and many old light cruisers. |
| From 1940, flag superior F was allocated
to monitors, gunboats, armed merchant cruisers, boarding vessels and combatant
auxiliaries. |
| Flag superior I was allocated to support,
repair and depot ships and also coastal and ocean going antiaircraft ships. |
| A revision to flag G was made with
the 'Weapons' class as well as the cancelled 'G' classes. |
| As war losses had left many gaps in the original
lists, the later 'Battle' and 'D' classes reverted to flag I. |
|
| Minelaying vessel |
| Minelaying vessels were allocated flag superior
M.
The large fast minelayers received numbers, but only the minor and auxiliary
minelayers had numbers painted on. The cruiser minelayer ADVENTURER and
the six Abdiel class also had M. Some early 'Flower' class corvettes
that were capable of minelaying had flag superior M. |
|
|
| Sloops, Corvettes, and Frigates |
| At the outbreak of World War II, the following
flags superior were worn by the various classes of sloops: |
| L |
Escort vessels, patrol vessels (they had previously worn
flag P) |
| N |
Minesweepers |
| J |
Surveying vessels (former sloops) |
| But the corvettes under construction were
allocated flag M and the patrol vessels were similarly altered. |
| But for most of the war, all post 1920's
sloops had flag superior U, and K,
as in 1940, with the general reallocation of flag superiors, the following changes occurred: |
| U |
Escort vessels (The FLEETWOOD retained flag L) |
| K |
Patrol vessels (All corvettes, small escorts, frigates,
and the 'Captain' and 'Colony' class escort destroyers - except PC-74 which
was allocated flag Z) |
| J |
All minesweepers and some larger minesweeping trawlers
(The HMAS ARARAT received flag K) |
| Subsequent war construction conformed with
the above and the frigates, as they came into service, also received flag
K. Exceptions were the former US Coast Guard cutters , which were given
flag Y, and the coastal escorts of the 'Kil' class, which received flag
5. |
|
|
| Auxiliary Fighting Vessels |
| There apparently was no uniform system of
categorizing the type or employment of auxiliary merchantile vessels. Although
a letter was assigned to each vessel, it was not a definite indication
of the its role, as these vessels were subject to constantly changing use. |
| 4 |
Convoy escorts, auxiliary antiaircraft ships, auxiliary
patrol vessels, auxiliary minesweepers, armed yachts |
| D |
Escort carriers, large aircraft transports, transports
for crashed aircraft. (Also some special service vessels and auxiliary
antiaircraft ships) |
| F |
Small aircraft transports, special service vessels, auxiliary
antiaircraft ships |
| I |
Armed merchant cruisers, ocean and armed boarding vessels,
auxiliary minelayers. (Changed to flag F
or M in 1940) |
| FY |
smaller trawlers, motor fishing vessels and patrol craft,
auxiliary patrol vessels, auxiliary minesweepers, mine destructors, armed
yachts |
| J |
Auxiliary minesweepers |
| M |
Auxiliary minelayers |
| N |
Support ships such as paddle minesweepers, surveying
vessels, netlayers, AA auxiliaries, boarding vessels and the larger armed
yachts (Flag N changed to J
in 1940) |
| T |
Larger trawlers (auxiliary patrol vessels, auxiliary
minesweepers, river gunboats) |
| W |
Older trawlers |
| Z |
Cable vessels, ocean going, armed tugs |
|
|
| Auxiliary Support Vessels |
| The following flags superior were in use
at the start of World War II: |
| I |
Depot ship |
| N |
Depot ship |
| T |
Netlayers and net tenders |
| P |
Boom defense vessels |
| |
Repair ships had no flag superior |
| In 1940 the system was changed as follows: |
| F |
Depot ships, repair and maintenance ships, base and accommodation
ships, (HMS DUNLUCE CASTLE had no flag superior) |
| J |
Depot ships (however, HMS RESOURCE had no flag superior,
while HMS BLENHEIM used flag 4) |
| 4 |
Base and accommodation ships, auxiliary vessels |
| T |
Netlayers and net tenders |
| Z |
Gate, mooring and boom defense vessels |
| W |
Tugs and salvage vessels |
| X |
Miscellaneous vessels |
| Y |
Store carriers |
|
|
| Trawlers, Whalers, and Drifters |
| The following flags superior were in use
during World War II: |
| 4 |
Auxiliary patrol, balloon barrage, torpedo recovery,
wreck dispersal, wreck locating, examination service, armed boarding vessels,
and even some antisubmarine and minesweeping vessels. |
| B |
Air-sea rescue |
| FY |
antisubmarine, minesweeping, danlayer, degaussing, mine
wiping, mine recovery vessels. Some air sea rescue, auxiliary patrol vessels,
balloon barrage, armed boarding vessels. |
| J |
RN: Danlayers; RAN & RCN & RNN: minesweeper trawlers |
| K |
Some antisubmarine trawlers |
| M |
Controlled minelayer trawlers |
| T |
Some antisubmarine and minesweeper trawlers and whalers |
| U |
Some antisubmarine trawlers |
| Y |
Store, fuel, water carriers |
| Z |
Boom defense, boom gate, net layer vessels, naval drifters
(the latter wore FY until 1940) |
|
|
| Coastal Forces |
| The coastal forces' vessels were not given specific
pennant numbers. The boat's (numerical) name itself was worn under the pennant letter. |
| V |
MTB |
| S |
CMB, MA/SB, MGB, SGB, (later changed to flag 8) |
| Q |
ML, HDML |
| FY |
MMS, MFV |
| J |
MAC |
| P |
DCMB, CT |
|
