Last modified: 2020-11-14 by rob raeside
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The information on this page is provided as supplemental information to the Dictionary of Vexillology. It originated with an older version of a vexillological glossary produced by FOTW. Some terms below may have additional information at FOTW.
In addition, bands with battle honors engraved on them were placed in chronological
order below the unit designation band on the regimental color. The Army abandoned
the battle honor bands when streamers were introduced following World War I.
The last use of silver bands in the US Army was abolished in late 2004, and
they were replaced with streamers.
Joe McMillan, 27 January 2006
Before this, this cross was used by the family of his grandfather, René le Bon, count of Anjou, Provence and Lorraine.
The house of Anjou carries this cross on them war banners since 1360 and it is this family which carried it in Hungary.
At this time, this cross was known as cross of Anjou.
Dominique Cureau, 10 March 2007
"In addition to the pennant, warships often flew vanes at empty mastheads. These were
short, blunt pennants, sometimes on a rigid framework, which were used by merchant ships
as well as warships. The vanes of warships were generally of the squadronal colour, though
some late-18th-century fleets were equipped with sets of different vanes in more than one
colour which were used to distinguish individual ships."
p.27 Flags at Sea [wil99] by Timothy Wilson.
"Eighteenth-century merchantmen were forbidden to fly pennants, but instead often flew
short vanes at the masthead. Paintings of the period usually show them as being plain
red."
p.34 ibid.
"... at the battle of Lowestoft in 1655 there were seven squadrons in the Dutch fleet,
three distinguished by the masthead at which their pennants flew, the other four by the
use of special variously coloured small masthead flags or vanes."
p.57 ibid
Memorandum Respecting Colours to be Worn, by Robert Calder, Victory, 3 January 1796. "The Van Squadron to carry their Vanes at their Main topmast heads, the Rear at their Fore topmast heads, and the Centre and all other Ships, Frigates, Sloops etc. etc. at their Mizzen topmast heads. The Vanes are to be three breadths or about thirty inches broad and six feet long (76cm x 1.8m), the upper part of the frame to run nearly the whole length of the Vane, the under part to be one quarter shorter. The colours to be of equal proportions whether vertically or horizontally divided. The Vanes of frigates to be proportionally less."
Quoted by Hilary Mead in the October 1937 Journal of the Society for Nautical Research
from an MS in the Duckworth Papers, National Maritime Museum. Mead commented that,
"The memorandum appears to throw some fresh light on the composition of vanes; instead
of being ribbons or wisps of bunting as may have been supposed, they were evidently of
substantial size and visibility, as was of course their function. Perhaps they are not
more conspicuous in contemporary pictures because the artists were not sure of the colours,
which at times were extremely complicated."
David Prothero, 30 March 2007
