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Royal Air Force flag proposal

by Martin Grieve

Description of the flag

See also:

Description of the flag

Flag suggested for Royal Air Force in 1918.
National Archives (PRO) AIR 5/333 Pt. II
Not apparently ever seriously considered, but it might perhaps have been the inspiration for the RAF rank flags?

David Prothero, 4 October 2004

I think that the plain five-striped design was used as some sort of camp flag by RFC during WW1. This page at www.aeroconservancy.com has a few relevant images. At the top of the page there is a RFC pennant, which was probably an unofficial novelty flag. A third down the page there is the RFC armband with the five stripes; just below it at the right there is a poster with a tiny flag bearing those five stripes!
Miles Li, 5 October 2004

This was a proposal devised to accompany a submission to the War Cabinet over the design of the RAF flag. Since the RAF and the Admiralty could not agree on a design, someone proposed that the War Cabinet should break the 'logjam'. But the flag was rejected. (My notes say that the decision was made to refer the matter to the War Cabinet in December 1918, but that the proposal was not made until January 1920 - see amplification below.)

The original design was used as a headquarters flag for the Royal Flying Corps in the Field in France, set out in a British Expeditionary Force General Rout