However, post-war flags sometimes depict the silhouette of a ship instead. Symbols included bars, to shows how many hits on ships had been notched up, with each bar representing ships torpedoed. The current First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, paid homage to the legacy of Admiral Sir Max Horton in a post on Twitter earlier this month, marking “70 years since the passing of Admiral Sir Max Horton” and adding: “As Captain of HM Submarine E9 he instigated the tradition of submarines flying the Jolly Roger on successful return from patrol.” However, the submarines started to win victory after victory, so the collection of flags flown from the top of the conning tower soon became numerous, so that practice was swapped – with a submarine flying one single large Jolly Roger flag, with symbols indicating each of the submarine’s successes sewn on to the flag. He carried on this practice – adding another flag on the submarine each time he returned from a successful operation. ![]() Submariner Lieutenant-Commander, later to become Admiral, Sir Max Horton, had at the time been in command of one of the first of Britain’s ocean-going submarines, HMS E9, which notched up a series of successful operations as the war developed – including torpedoing the German SMS Hela off the coast of the North Sea archipelago Heligoland, and the sinking of the German destroyer S116, for which he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order.īritain’s Submarine Service began earning a reputation as an effective fighting force that was making a significant strategic difference to the course of the war.Īnother British submarine attack on the Prinz Adalbert in October 1915 inflicted what was perhaps one of the greatest single losses for the German Navy in the Baltic – helping to seal the reputation of Britain’s submarines as a vital part of the Royal Navy’s fleet.įollowing a series of victorious operations, the then Lieutenant Commander Max Horton, remembering the comments about submarine crews being thought of as ‘pirates’ offered a retort to the initial sentiment – by flying a Jolly Roger from his submarine on return from a successful patrol. The service had only been in operation for just over a decade when the First World War broke out in 1914 and had yet to prove itself in battle. He added that submarines were ‘underhand, unfair, and damned un-English,’ with some suggestions that submarine crews should be hanged as pirates. When the Royal Navy launched its first submarine in 1901, the then First Sea Lord, Admiral Arthur Wilson, reportedly stated that submariners were ‘nothing more than tradesmen’. ![]() In its early days, the service was not so well regarded in all quarters of the navy, with some suggesting that underwater warfare was, well, just not cricket. ![]() The sight of a Jolly Roger flag once struck fear into the hearts of sailors at sea as it often meant a bloodthirsty band of pirates were about to launch a deadly attack – but there is a fascinating, if not somewhat rebellious, reason why today’s Royal Navy submarines fly the iconic skull and crossbones as part of a tradition that dates back to the First World War.īritain’s Submarine fleet might now be seen as an unrivalled Silent Service that gives the Royal Navy strength beneath the waves but that was not always the case. ![]() When the Royal Navy launched its first submarine in 1901, the Sea Lord said submarines were ‘underhand, unfair, and damned un-English’
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