France: Navy unit pennants

Last modified: 2018-11-20 by ivan sache
Keywords: pennant |
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• Presentation of the Navy unit pennants
• List of Navy units with a pennant
  • Fighting vessels
  • Support vessels
  • On-land units
  • Recently decommissioned vessels
• Badge of the Navy Air Force units
• Tradition pennants
• Pennants
  • Corvettes
  • Aircraft carriers
  • Anti-aircraft frigates
  • Lafayette-type frigates
  • Surveillance frigates
  • Light-transport vessels
  • Submarines
  • Navy Air Bases
  • Navy Instruction Centers

See also:

• France
• France: Naval flags
• France: Army unit pennants

External sites:

• Net-Marine, an association's site on the French Navy
• French Navy official website

Presentation of the Navy unit pennants

Originally used to signal units on land or landing corpses, the pennants, non mandatory, were purchased by the units. Today the symbols of the moral statutes of the units, the pennants are strictly regulated. Their design must be approved by the Chief of Staff of the Navy before they can be manufactured by the Navy relevant services. The decorations granted to the unit are pinned on the pennant.
The pennants of the disbanded units are kept by the Historical Service of the Navy and showed in a honour room of the Queen's Pavilion in the Castle of Vincennes, where they can be seen every Wednesday, 14:00-17:00.
[Rear Admiral Kessler. Les témoins du sacrifice. Cols Bleus, No. 2326, 11 November 1995]

Ivan Sache, 14 March 2009

The Navy has two sorts of pennants: unit pennants (mostly ships) and company pennants, the latter being used only by pupils of Naval schools. The pennants appear in two sizes: "B" pennants (40 cm x 50 cm) and "C" (30 cm x 40 cm), used by companies. Apparently, the colors are not regulated.

The obverse bears the embroidered name of the unit, anchors are optional. The reverse has a symbolic emblem. The symbolic emblem has to be approved:
- for local Naval authorities, commandements organiques (operational branches), Naval Air Force bases and units, the emblem is an escutcheon, in proportions 13:16, with a chief azure, a Naval Air Force emblem or and a mural crown or. Maritime Prefect services' escutcheons have a mural crown with five towers, and are supported by two rostres (naval rams stylized as some sort of tridents);
- for other units, the choice of the emblem is free as long as they are not too fanciful and chosen with "good taste". The only obligation is that the emblem must include either an anchor or rigging.
A pennant can have a golden fringe of 3 cm at most. The homologation number, preceded by letter "M", is reproduced on the sleeve, in the same color as the field. The finial is either a pike or an anchor (long of 10 cm at most) and its size is proportional to the size of the pennant.
A pennant cannot receive military honors, and cannot escort a flag or be escorted. The département decides which units can have pennants and which their size will be. The school directors assign pennants to their companies.

Sources:

- Official texts

• Instruction No. 77/EMM/PL/ORG relative au cérémonial dans la marine, version No. 3, 6 November 2008 (text)
• Circulaire No. 249/DEF/CEMM relative à la symbolique militaire, 13 May 2004 (text)

- Navy websites

• Flags
• Pennants

Corentin Chamboredon, 29 August 2015

List of Navy units with a pennant

Here is the list, no longer accurate, of unit pennants as given by Rear Admiral Kessler (Les témoins du sacrifice. Cols Bleus, No. 2326, 11 November 1995).

Fighting vessels

Support vessels

On-land units

Recently decommissioned vessels

Ivan Sache & Esteban Rivera, 30 August 2015

Badge of the Navy Air Force units

The badges (description) used by Navy Air Force units are regulated by Ministerial Decree No 2789 EMG/M/AERO/0 of 31 October 1946. Claiming that most badges used beforehand had no elements related to the Navy Air Force, the Minister stated that:
- the badge should be made of a shield of modern shape, in proportions 13:16;
- the chief of the badge should have an height of 3/16 of the height of the badge and bear the "penguin", that is the emblem of the Navy Air Force (an anchor with a star in its upper part, over two wings, all in gold);
- the emblem of the unit should be placed in the main field of the shield.
On 7 February 1947, the Decree was amended, prescribing the addition of a golden mural crown surmounting the shield of the Navy Air bases, considered as "fortified towns" (places), and of the name of the base on the shield.
In 1951, an official homologation procedure of the badges was set up, the approved badges being numbered "M ...", "M" standing for "Marine" (Navy). Decree No. 808 EMM/CAB of 5 December 1985 did not change anything to the prescription of the unit badges.

Differences in details of the badges are due to manufacturer's license or even gross mistake. The Fréjus-Saint-Raphaêl base was granted a badge without the crown while the 31F squad was granted a badge with the crown, quickly corrected.

Ivan Sache, 23 March 2009

Tradition pennants

The pavillon de tradition (tradition pennant) is offered to a ship by her patron town. The pennant is flown when the ship receives supplies, fuel or mail when at sea or, sometimes, when visiting the patron town. The pennant of a decommissioned ship shall be offered to her patron town. Part of the tradition stuff (unit pennant, tampion, memorial plates) the pennant is not official. As exaplmes:

Corentin Chamboredon, 20 April 2016