Arrrr! No Quarter!

Is there a (british) naval signal flag for "No Quarter"? All I have been able to find is Crossbones.

 

Historically, a white flag is shown to request parley. If accepted, a white flag is hoisted in reply. If a black flag was hoisted, the parley was rejected (it being considered bad form to fire on someone showing a white flag before giving them a reply). A ship that entered combat with a black flag flying showed that it was rejecting all parley from the onset…i.e. no quarter. The later modifications by individual pirates made it more of a “house flag”, but still got the point across.

 

Arrrr! No Quarter

One assumes, Thunderhead19 my man, when you refer to the (british) navy, you mean the Royal Navy... The nationality of a navy is only necessary when referring to a motley collection of ships and crews belonging to ex-colonies (Canada for example, or North America) and parts of the landmass we never bothered to visit. Have it tattooed somewhere accessible as a reminder. There's a good chap...

 

Of mild interest a black flag indicates (or it did last time I looked) that a surface unit has a sonar contact (asdic for bergalia) probably a submarine! In the days of real submarines (diesel not these panzy nuke's - they actually wash at sea!) there was a band of cut throat pirates that didn't deserve quarter, nor ask it (unless it was "up spirits" which of course is different!).

 

Ah, yes! As your Field Marshall Haig once put it, we Canadians are a rather "Second Class sort" (worthy of your second hand submarines, eh?). Today our navy is no longer the RCN, our airforce no longer the RCAF. Our fleet was once the worlds third largest, and now it's pitiful!

The Admiralty standardized all those flags and signals. Although, I assume that there wasn't always an Admiralty, Or was that before Britain was Great? Perish the thought!

Sir Francis Drake would be rolling over in his tomb if he heard that.

 

Arrrr! No Quarter

Typical Colonials... Don't they realize that Drake who led the battle against the Spanish Armada, was buried at sea off the Pacific coast of Panama in 1596. (0oooops - apologies.. Of course Canada, like the US wasn't invented then....)

 

Stand fast The Holy Ghost

 

Dear Thunderhead,
Being the most civilised, gentlemenly, greatest and most compassionate Nation on the planet (after the Scottish Nation of course) the Royal Navy had no flag for this as we were always ready to accept anyone who would wish to surrender to us, after all who else would we use to populate the rest of the planet.........

 

Arrrr! No Quarter

True, very true, Paul. But of course the mere sight of a Royal Navy gunship was enough to make other nations crumble....(exit left, to strains of 'Rule Britannia'....)

 

You mean the sight of HMCS Halifax and HMCS Chicoutimi escorted by a pair of 25-year-old CF-18 jets and 3/4 of a Sea King chopper doesn't strike fear into the hearts of evil-doers worldwide?

 

Arrrr! No Quarter

Yes - but not as much as Nelson Eddy's solo in 'Rosemarie'.....

 

or Bergalia in a kilt....

 

Some things are just toooo much!

 

The mere sight of a Royal Navy Gunship?

I picture now a mighty fleet of massive dreadnoughts plying it's way up the Mediterranean, steaming east into the narrow passage to Constantinopole, scattering a firey hellish death like a rake across the shore on both sides. Then I picture a couple ships striking two stray floating mines and the whole armada scurrying off like scared rabits. Now let me see, what nation did that happen to.....

 

Arrrr! No Quarter

Never happened Thunderhead...never happpened. Simply a fictitious prologue for an Australian film script called 'Gallipolli'.