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image by Jarig Bakker, 5 February 2006
Ultramar Shipping Co., Inc., New York - horizontal blue over yellow flag; on
yellow "Ultramar" in blue; on blue a yellow eagle.
Source:
Loughran (1995)
Jarig Bakker, 5 February 2006
Union Barge Line, Pittsburgh
As the name and homeport suggest, this is a barge line operating on the
Mississippi-Ohio river system. The flag is (was?) a white pennant with the word
"Union" in blue letters of diminishing size.
Source: www.steamship.net (no longer available)
Joe McMillan, 29 November 2001
I am reporting two flags flown from the ferry boat "Brooklyn", operated by the
Union Ferry Company in the 1840s, at the time one of five ferry lines crossing
between Brooklyn and Manhattan. They are from a painting from some time between
1846-49 by the identical twin painters James and John Bard, noted for their
depictions of river craft around New York. I saw the painting in a
black-and-white photograph in the book "Brooklyn's City Hall", by William J.
Conklin and Jeffrey Simpson, Copyright 1983 by the City of New York. But the
image is credited to the Long Island Historical Society, now known as the
Brooklyn Historical Society. I imagine the painting is in their archive. As the
photo was black-and-white, I was forced to chose dark blue as a reasonably
likely color.
Richard Knipel, 2 August 2004
Union (Havre) Line, New York (?-1863)<us~union.gif
This flag is very similar to that of the Fox & Livingston Havre Line, which was
one of the three New York-to-Le Havre lines that were consolidated into the
Union Line in the 1840s. It was eventually put out of business by the American
Civil War. This flag is white with a black U and was in use by at least 1845.
The
Fox & Livingston Union Line flag was white with a blue U
according to Private Signals of the Merchants of New York. I am somewhat skeptical that there were really two different flags, as the F&L line had been
consolidated into the Union Line by the time the chart was published.
Source: chart of "Private Signals of the Merchants of New York"
Joe McMillan, 29 November 2001
Union Oil Company of California, Los Angeles (1890-present)
This company was formed by the merger of the holdings of three partners who had
struck oil northwest of Los Angeles in the late 19th century. The number "76"
came into use as a trademark in 1930 and was placed on an orange circle, as
shown in the latter two flags below, in 1947.
Formed in 1890 by the merger of Hardison & Stewart Oil Company, Sespe Oil
Company and Torrey Canyon Oil Company. In 1917 it purchased Pinal-Dome Oil
company and in 1965 the Pure Oil Company. Shell bought 25% of the company and
formed Shell Oil Corporation in 1922 to consolidate its operations and those of
Union Oil Company of Delaware in 1922. Union Oil became Unocal in 1983.
Phil Nelson, 20 October 2003
Sources: Wedge (1951), Stewart (1953), US Navy's 1961 H.O. This was apparently the first flag of the company's tanker fleet, which consisted of 8 ships as of 1949. It was blue with a white lozenge bearing the initials U.O.Co. (as shown) or, in a variant, U.O.C.
Source: Styring (1971), a distinctive design of diagonal blue and white stripes with the orange 76 logo superimposed.
Source: photo of house flags in dining hall at US Merchant Marine Academy, Kings Point, apparently from the late 1970s, white with the word Union in blue lower case letters, the 76 on an orange disk forming the letter o.
Joe McMillan, 29 November 2001
Union Oil Co. of California. Going by Lloyds the shipping stayed under this
name until they got out around 1998 with the last couple of tankers now
operating [in their old names] under Crowley Petroleum Transport Inc. According
to Loughran (1979) the blue and white
diagonally striped flag was adopted in 1966 on the 76th anniversary.
Neale Rosanoski, 15 August 2004
image by Philip Patterson, 14 September 2019
Union Sulphur Co., New York (1896-1962)
This company was formed in New Jersey in 1896 and had operations all up and down
the U.S. east coast, but primarily in mining the sulphur domes along the
Louisiana and Texas coasts in the midst of oil country. It later got into the
oil business as well, specializing in extracting the sulphur from sour crude and
selling both products. It was operating its own ships by 1920. Union Sulphur
became Union Sulphur and Oil in 1950, Union Oil and Gas in 1955, and Union Texas
Natural Gas in 1960 before merging with Allied Chemical Company in 1962. The
flag (as I said, my favorite of the whole set) is perfect for a sulphur company,
as it simply reeks of brimstone--yellow with a red devil brandishing a black
pitchfork.
Source: Talbot-Booth (1937)
Joe McMillan, 29 November 2001
United American Lines (American Shipping and Commercial Corp.), New York
(1920-26)
This large shipping company was essentially the plaything of the W. Averell
Harriman, son of E. H. Harriman of the Union Pacific Railroad, whose name will
be familiar to fans of the film "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." It
was financed by Averell's mother as a way for him to make his mark in business
independent of his father--an interesting concept when Mom's providing all the
cash! Harriman's timing wasn't the best, as he entered the passenger shipping
business just when immigration laws were tightened, ending the great flow of
immigrants of the previous 40-50 years. He also got taken to the cleaners in a
joint venture with the German firm HAPAG, which was determined to recover from
the German defeat in the first World War, and whose owners had vastly more
experience in the shipping business than young Averell. Several million of his
mother's dollars later, Harriman sold what was left of UAL to HAPAG. He learned
from the bitter experience of UAL, however, and subsequently enjoyed
considerable success in international trade, although he did not go back into
shipping. He later entered politics and diplomacy, becoming governor of New
York and later U.S. ambassador to South Vietnam. He is best remembered today as
the last husband of the socialite, Democratic Party fundraiser, and U.S.
ambassador to Paris, Pamela Harriman. His choice in flags was unfortunately less
adventurous than his choice of brides: the white letters UAL on a blue field.
Source: verbal description in North Atlantic Seaway
IV:1502)
Joe McMillan, 29 November 2001
The pre-World War I American Line and the United States Lines, although with no direct corporate lineage, were both eventually owned by the International Mercantile Marine holding company and so ended up with the same house flag. The United States Lines was originally created by the US Shipping Board to operate German liners confiscated in World War I, including the huge HAPAG liner Vaterland, which was renamed Leviathan.
Larousse Commercial Illustré (Paris, 1930) shows a flag of the United
States Line, New York, as a blue swallowtail, a white disk near the hoist
bearing red letters ULS (with serifs), the L placed lower than the others; the U
and L have a definite upward slant. Different from what is shown above. Source
URL
http://www.nvo.com/louisvuitton/vintageluggagelabels/list.nhtml, item VL#28 is
no longer available, but the image is posted here.
Jan Mertens, 13 December 2003
The flag is shown by Brown 1929 although in their case
the bottom of the "L" is positioned horizontally. By
the dates of the sources, if the version existed or was proposed, then it would
appear to have been a replacement for the initial flag.
Neale Rosanoski, 15 August 2004
See also: reports of flags in the 1920s bearing a propeller.
Although it had sought to avoid doing so, the government sold both the United States Lines and another former Chapman property, the American Merchant Line, to the monopolistic International Mercantile Marine (parent company of the former American Line) in consortium with the Robert Dollar family. IMM gave both companies modified versions of the old American Line flag, a blue eagle on white, with the initials of the respective lines added in the upper hoist and fly and lower center. A third IMM property, the Panama-Pacific Line, used a similar flag but with the eagle shown in outline with blue details rather than all blue. (Source: description in North Atlantic Seaway IV:192)
Source: Barraclough & Crampton (1981)
Joe McMillan, 26 August 2000
This "similar flag" can be seen at
http://www.timetableimages.com/maritime/images/ppl.htm (last image, brochure
issued July 1940).
Jan Mertens, 13 January 2005
In 1937, IMM abolished the American Merchant Line and merged its assets into the United States Lines. At this point, the initials were removed from the flags and the simple blue eagle on white of the pre-war American Line was restored. Eventually, IMM decided that "United States Lines" had a better public resonance than "International Mercantile Marine" and arranged for the parent company to be swallowed up by the subsidiary. For the rest of its history, US Lines was the premier shipping company operating under the United States flag, both the largest and the most prestigious. Its flagship, the United States, was the biggest passenger ship ever built in the US and the fastest ever. But it never turned a profit, and a combination of losses from passenger service and slowness to embrace containerization for its freight services put the company in serious financial trouble by the late 1960s. It recovered briefly but went back into the red in mid-1980s and was forced into bankruptcy and liquidation in 1986. The name "United States Line" has since been purchased by a company that is running cruises under that name, but I don't know if they are also using the old USL flag.
Source: National Geographic (1934)
Joe McMillan, 26 August 2001
image by Jarig Bakker, based on the website of the National Maritime Museum.
From the website of the National
Maritime Museum, "the house flag of the United States Lines Co., New
York. A white rectangular flag, printed in blue with the American eagle, 'UNITED
STATES LINES' below. The flag is made of nylon fabric. It has a cotton hoist and
is machine sewn."
Joe McMillan made several images of this shipping line, none of which resembles
this one. The flag was produced c. 1951, perhaps a special flag?
Jarig Bakker, 31 August 2004
The company was sold in 1929 to Paul W. Chapman, a financial speculator, as
part of privatization of the lines created by the Shipping Board. The only
change in the flag was the addition of a red star in the canton. Unfortunately,
private ownership turned out to run a less efficient operation than the USSB,
and the Shipping Board was forced to resume ownership in 1931 to save the
company from bankruptcy.
Source: (Source: description in North Atlantic
Seaway IV:192)
Joe McMillan, 26 August 2001
United States Lines. The flag shown for 1929-1931 is only an assumption
because Bonsor does not mention any lettering or propeller. The 1931-1938
version is shown by Brown 1934 as having a black eagle and letters which
colouring can probably be disregarded although Loughran (1979) also shows the
same. Whilst it may represent a subsequent change to a plain blue eagle, which
all sources agree with, it seems more likely to be a confusion caused by a dark
shade of blue.
Neale Rosanoski, 15 August 2004
USL never featured a propeller on its flag. Its first flag
(between 1921 and 1929) featured a white disc with red letters USL on a blue
background and a very different design but not on white between 1929 and 1931.
Mark H. Goldberg, 29 December 2013
Note that the information here referring to a propeller came from a book
about Atlantic merchant shipping entitled North Atlantic Seaway. That was a
verbal description, on the basis of which I drew the images concerned. I have
not found any direct evidence that it was used as a flag, but the logo described
in the book is presumably the one that appears at the bottom of
this poster for SS Leviathan. Not a propeller, but the authors of the book
could easily have mistaken it for one.
Joe McMillan, 18 October
2014
Redrawn images based on the description in North Atlantic Seaway and using
the SS Leviathan poster as a design base are posted for the 1921
and 1929 flags.
Peter Hans van den
Muijzenberg, 18 November 2014
image by Rob Raeside, 26 December 2005
The flag can be seen flying at
http://www.nd.edu/~scollin4/Michigan03.htm#sault (third image down), which shows from left to right,
this flag, Algoma,
Interlake, Inland Lakes Mgt, and Canadian Steamship. The flag is divided
horizontally, black above white, and has a red triangle near the hoist (a
‘Czech’ pattern). It seems also to wave on this US Steel ship, the ‘George A.
Sloan’:
http://www.wellandcanal.ca/shiparc/uss/georgeasloan/sloan4.htm.
Jan Mertens, 4 November 2005
United States Steel (USS) Great Lakes Fleet Inc. started out in 1981 when US
Steel, Pittsburgh Steamship Div. (formerly the venerable
Pittsburgh Steamship Co., once the biggest
US Great Lakes operator) merged with other firms to become USS Great Lakes
Fleet. Cargoes were bulk goods: taconite, salt, coal, etc. At the end of 2003,
Canadian National Railroad announced plans to buy the firm, by then operating
eight bulk cargo ships, an intention which was realized in May 2004. Some
pictures showing the ‘Czech’ patterned flag can be found at
http://www.boatnerd.com/pictures/fleet/thumb/Munson-bow-small.jpg,
http://www.boatnerd.com/news/newpictures/gotta6-26-01-mn.jpg, and
http://www.boatnerd.com/pictures/fleet/thumb/MUNSONJOHNGb1508-18-02mn.jpg.
Jan Mertens, 11 November 2005
Shortly after my report I stumbled upon an American eBay offer, item no.
7373226822 (ended 17 Dec. 2005) showing a similar flag. Quote: “This house flag
measuring approximately 7 feet 9 inches long by 4 feet 7 inches wide was used by
the Great Lakes Fleet (ex-USS Fleet) on its Lake freighters. The flag is made
form high strength nylon and is in absolutely pristine condition. Its condition
would indicate that it may never have been put into service. It was purchased in
Duluth, MN in the 1990’.” The flag is also shown on the
flag chart.
Jan Mertens, 8 November 2006
Why this flag was used is a bit of a mystery which I am trying to unravel at the
moment. There was a funnel marking at one time which used a kind of version of
the flag as a panel but following threads on the boatnerd website I cannot find
any mention of this but there is reference to a light blue flag with "USS"
within a ring in either grey or silver being the US Steel flag and appearing on
cap badges and being flown by ships as well as outside their HQ (28.4.2009 - see
http://www.daylife.com/article/0a06eM5aqmb54?q=Cisco+Systems%2C+Inc), which
is said by a boatnerd thread to have been adopted in the 1960s though seen as a
rectangle rather than a swallowtail as shown on the cap badges.
Incidentally the Know Your Ships 2007 which is the last one I got showed that
the Great Lakes Fleet was flying the flag of the managers Key Lakes Inc. so the
"Czech" style flag may have gone.
Neale Rosanoski, 2 February 2010
US Steel was the owner of the company, during that time they used the blue with white USS flag which is still flow at the USS steel mills and office locations. When Transtar was formed they moved all the transport companies (rail roads and the Great Lakes fleet) under their control. That is when they used the black red and white flag. It represents the coal, iron ore, and limestone the Great Lakes fleet carried. When US Steel sold off various parts of its transportation companies CN bought it and placed it under Key Lakes to remain in compliance with the Jones Act, they now fly the Key Lakes house flag.
In 1967 Us Steel merged the Bradley transportation, and the Pittsburgh steamship
together and renamed it USS Great Lakes fleet. 1988 is when they fell under
Transtar and in 2001 it was sold to CN Rail.
steveo1226, 16 August
2013
Based in Cleveland (Source: Wedge, 1951)
From the home port, obviously a Great Lakes company, but no further
information. Flag white with a red oval bearing the company's initials in
white.
Joe McMillan, 26 August 2001
image by Ivan Sache, 5 September 2005
George B. Upton, Boston, is one of the house flags carried by Donald McKay's
Clippers.
Jan Mertens, 29 August 2005
USS Holding LLC - Red charged with with bordered blue lozenge with US above
and S below
http://www.usshippingllc.com/default.asp
Dov Gutterman, 13 October 2003
US shipping lines house flags - 'V' continued