Unidentified flags (The Netherlands)

Last modified: 2008-07-26 by jarig bakker
Keywords: ufe |
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• An unidentified flag or ensign (ufe) in Lundy (GB)
• A UFE on a motorboat
• A Terschellinger UFE
• Unknown NIVM (?) house flag

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An unidentified flag or ensign (ufe) in Lundy (GB)

While I was on Lundy, I took a photograph of a painting which hangs in the vestibule of the Church. The photo didn't come out, unfortunately, but it commemorates a Dutch coaster, the M.V. Atlas, of Groningen, and her 2nd engineer, Fokko Smit, who lost his life when the ship was wrecked on one of Lundy's notorious rocks during the second world war, in 1942.
The painting showed the vessel flying the Dutch national flag (not an ensign) at the stern, and further forward (not at the bow) she is flying a flag which I didn't recognise and cannot find on FOTW-ws. It is an orange field with the Dutch national flag in the canton and a 3-digit number (the ship's registration?) in white on the field.
The same flag, with no number, also appears above the inscription which forms part of the painting, where it is shown crossed with the Dutch national flag against an anchor.
André Coutanche, 17 Apr 2002

Just a guess: possibly a houseflag. Several Dutch shipping companies had tricolors in the canton, some RWB, like the HSM, Hollandsche Stoomboot Maatschappij, which had a white field with red capitals HSM. In Groningen were very small companies, sometimes owning only one coaster, and I suppose it will be hard to find the company. Which digits are written on the field?
Jarig Bakker, 17 Apr 2002

This sounds like the flag of a Seaman's College (Zeemanscollege). Several of them have a Dutch canton. The number would be the captain's memberschip number.
But I don't know which one this would be. If the ship is from Groningen one would expect a member of De Groninger Eendracht, but then the flag would have been white, and the number would have been preceded with "Gr". Of course, by 1949 the captain could well have been from a town different from the ships home port.
Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 17 Apr 2002

I can say that the inscription says:
'In memory of Fokko Smit 2nd Engineer
and the crew of MV Atlas of Groningen
wrecked near the Shutter during the night of Octr 9/10 1942.
"The Sea is His and He made it".'
[The Shutter is a rock].
I didn't write down the number on the flag (assuming that I would have it on the photo), but I am 99% certain that it consisted just of three digits and no letters.
André Coutanche, 17 Apr 2002

The painting showed the vessel flying a flag - an orange field with the Dutch national flag in the canton and a 3-digit number (the ship's registration?) in white on the field.
The same flag, with no number, also appears above the inscription which forms part of the painting, where it is shown crossed with the Dutch national flag against an anchor.

I started doubting that it would be a Seaman's College, and started thinking it might instead be a Compact, what we'd now call a mutual ships insurance. But as it happens I never got around looking for the obvious.
So it is that, while I was off-list, without the connection being not(ic)ed, Jan Mertens contributed the story of Oranje Verzekeringen (Orange Insurances). Completely ignorant of this, around the same time, I was looking up some insurance-data and noticed the very obvious answer: An insurance company called "Oranje" (Orange).

I noticed that Oranje Verzekeringen might well have used an Orange flag with a Dutch canton. When I contacted them, and explained about the Lundy painting, they confirmed they had previously used such a flag. But they wrote they didn't have any knowledge of the painting, and that they no longer kept archives from that time. However, only a few days later, they contacted me again to inform me they had been in touch with the depot where their archive had been entered, and had been able to confirm that M.V. Atlas had indeed been insured by Oranje at that time.

This also settles the question I left open in the introduction of the Zeemanscolleges: The Lundy painting of M.V. Atlas demonstrates the existence of numbered member flags for at least Oranje Verzekeringen.
Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 28 Jun 2008

Since I made the original report - six years ago - I have been back to Lundy many times, and I have tried to take a better photograph of the painting. At last, two years ago, I was there in the company of a competent photographer as part of a week to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of the Lundy Field Society (LFS). At my request he took some decent photos of the painting, though I didn't get around to sending them to the List.
I have now uploaded to the NL files section three photos showing the picture and the relevant details (the pictures are taken at an angle to prevent the surface reflecting back the flash which is necessary in the dark entrance lobby to the church on Lundy).
I will report your research to colleagues in the LFS and it may then be published as a note in our Newsletter.
André Coutanche, 28 Jun 2008

A UFE on a motorboat

I've seen a flag, hoisted on a big motorboat, in the Netherlands. It's a black flag, with a yellow rectangle in the middle. I hope you know where this flag stands for.
Dion van der Born, 26 May 2004

A Terschellinger UFE

Mr. R.R. de Vries sent this image. The photo shows the Dutch flag, the flag of Terschelling in Fryslân province (a five-band) and a red trapezoid burgee, with possibly something in the canton, at the hoist a castle-like item, and at the fly the Terschelling flag. What is it? I have asked the Terschelling municipal administration, which knew nothing.
Stefan Lambrechts only found the burgee of "Het Wakend Oog" YC, with its intimidating burgee; it may be a burgee, a jumelage flag - or whatever.
Jarig Bakker, 28 Jul 2005

Unknown NIVM (?) house flag

Last August Jarig sent me a giffed UFE, seen by him on a Rotterdam barge.  There are similarities – the blue ‘N’ stands out well and the green-white-green stripes ostensibly represent Rotterdam. On the other hand… could this be a spruced-up version of the NIMV house flag?
Jan Mertens, 7 Dec 2006