Kingdom of Romania - Rank flags - World War II

Last modified: 2004-07-03 by rob raeside
Keywords: romania | naval rank |
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• Air Transport and Marine Minister
• Under Secretary State Minister of the Navy
• Commander of the Navy as Vice Admiral
• Commander of the Navy as Rear Admiral
• Rear Admiral
• Commodore as flotilla/division chief
• Commodore as Commander of a small unit
• Seniority Pennant
• High State Officials
• Masthead Pennant

See also:

• Romania
• Romania: Index of all pages

Like many nations that fought with Germany in World War II, Romania modified its symbolism in one way or another to either aid in identification or to emulate its German allies. Romania changed many of its rank flags from the tricolor to, for lack of a better phrase, a tricolor and cross. These are all based on images from the Flaggenbuch (1939).
Calvin Paige Herring, 3 January 1999

1:1, by Zeljko Heimer

A square flag vertically divided blue and red with a yellow cross throughout widening towards the edges, defaced in the middle with a white emblem of the Ministry. The emblem consists of wings, a shield of arms of Romania, an anchor with cable and the Iron Crown at the top.
From the image in Flaggenbuch (1939) I would hardly guess what was indeed in the shield of the emblem, but from Paige Herring provided images that made it rather obvious. I don't know if he had some other sources confirming it, or if it is his conclusion (which seems quite logical, but for the sake of "scholarliness" I must point this out).
Zeljko Heimer, 27 December 2002

by Zeljko Heimer

As above but without the wings. I am not quite satisfied either with my translation of the title. Obviously it is the "first deputy" of the Minister responsible for the marine part of the "Air Transport and Marine". It is not clear if these two flags were the only ones used, or if the square flag with an M continued to be used for War Minister and other ministers.
Zeljko Heimer, 27 December 2002

by Zeljko Heimer

As above but without both wings and the shield of arms (i.e. only cabled anchor and crown), with two white five-pointed stars, one in each blue quarter. This flag apparently replaced the one found in 1939 edition.
Zeljko Heimer, 27 December 2002

by Zeljko Heimer

As the flag for C-in-C when Vice Admiral, but only one star in canton. The existence of this variant might suggest that there was something similar also in the previous flag set.
Zeljko Heimer, 27 December 2002

by Zeljko Heimer

A flag patterned similarly to those above, but without any emblem in the middle, and with a white five-pointed star in canton. What about 2 star flag for the Vice Admiral? Probably there was no need as he would already be C-in- C and use the flag above, but theoretically... there might have been something prescribed. Again, this flag apparently replaced the one found in 1939 edition.
Zeljko Heimer, 27 December 2002

by Zeljko Heimer

Square flag of the same pattern as previous flags without any defacement. There was no commodore flag in 1939 set.
Zeljko Heimer, 27 December 2002

~4:5, by Zeljko Heimer

The "tricolour and cross" flag in swallow-tailed form. The two tricolour flags for lesser naval ranks shown in 1939 edition were presumably abandoned with the introduction of these. Any confirmation? The ratio proposed above is based on measurement of the image in Flaggenbuch (1939) 36 x 44 mm.
Zeljko Heimer, 27 December 2002

~4:5, by Zeljko Heimer

The same flag in triangular format. Apparently there was no matching flag prescribed before 1941.
Zeljko Heimer, 27 December 2002

High State Officials

~4:5, by Zeljko Heimer

Triangular pennant vertically divided in blue-yellow-red. I am not sure if my translation of the title is right, so here it is in German: Stander der höchsten staatlichen Würdenträger. The flag is very similar to the pennant of the Lt-Commander shown in 1939 edition (this may confirm suspicion that the LtC and Cdr flag were dropped in 1941). It is not entirely the same - the relative widths of the stripes and the overall ratio is slightly different, but this is certainly not a significant difference (and may be just an artefact of drawing/printing).
Zeljko Heimer, 27 December 2002

Masthead Pennant

~1:26, by Zeljko Heimer

The long triangular pennant vertically divided in the national tricolour. The image in Flaggenbuch (1939) is "cut-out" in the middle, so it is very hard to judge the ratio. My drawing 1:26~ is probably too short. Apparently, prior to this no masthead pennant was reported, so maybe it was officially adopted only in 1941. But, I'd guess that similar tricolour pennants must have been used since mid-19th century. Also, there seems to be no report of the masthead pennant from the Communist period. So it seems it was reintroduced only after 1995 (it appears in Corr 27 of Album des Pavillons, 2000).
Zeljko Heimer, 27 December 2002