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Romania - Military and Naval Colors Since 1989

România

Military Colors
Naval Jack
Naval Jack, 1995-1998(?)
Masthead Pennant
Coastguard Ensign

See also:

Military Colors

by Calvin Paige Herring and Jorge Candeias

The Military Colors

The color of military units is made up of the Aquila, the banner (the canvas of the color), the rod and the accessories.
The motto "Honor and Homeland" is inscribed on the observe on the prop and the full name of the military unit is inscribed on the reverse. The support is screwed on the truncated cone muff on top of the rod. The Aquila, the prop and the ornament are made of gilded copper plate. The banner is made of double-textured silk, it is rectangular in shape, 100 cm long and 66 cm wide, identically adorned on both sides.
On the banner the colours of the Romanian flag are strip-copied, beginning with blue next to the rod, then yellow and red. On the yellow strip in the centre, 18 cm from the banner basis Romania's coloured arms is applied. It is embroidered in gold and silver thread. It is 29 cm long and 21.5 cm wide.
On each of the four corners, 5 cm from the banner edges are two-branch wreaths embroidered in gild thread. They are 18 cm high and have the signs of the military force the unit belongs to inside.
On the three free sides, the banner is attached 5-7 cm long golden thread fringes and to the corners of the red strip there are 10-12 cm tassels made of golden thread.
The banner is attached to the rod by means of a stainless stick, 70 cm long. The brown wooden rod is 240 cm long and 3.5 cm in diameter. The metal stick is attached to the top of the rod with a truncated cone brass muff, 6 cm high, on which the Aquila is fixed. On the lower side, a 3.2 cm brass ring is inscribed the full name of the military unit. The truncated cone muff and the ring are gilded.
The rod has a brass cylinder on its lower end for protection purpose. The cylinder is closed at its lower end and is 4 cm high and 3.4 cm in inner diameter.

Quoted from "The Colors", Romanian Ministry of Defence homepage.
Calvin Paige Herring, 11 May 1998

Romanian military colours can be seen on the municipal website of Alba Iulia (1 December 1999 celebrations) at http://www.apulum.ro/en/foto-album2.htm. The image gallery shows detailed images of the colours and, compared to our image, it seems that the shield is larger on the real flags and that the ornaments in the corners of the flags are yellow and not white.
Ivan Sache, 16 May 2005

I attended 3 different military parades in Bucuresti. None of the units I saw had "permanent" military colors. They were using ordinary Romanian civil flags and were affixing the fringe and all the defacements with straight pins. The defacements were well made and embroidered. Had they been any smaller, they would have made excellent uniform patches. After the parades ended, someone would remove all the defacements from their respective flags and put them in a box.
Clay Moss, 16 May 2005

Navy Jack

1:1, by Željko Heimer

In regards to the current Romanian Jack, neither Armand nor I know of the date when it was taken into use. We can only speculate that it was fairly recent. His picture was taken in March 1998.
Calvin Paige Herring, 11 May 1998

National flag in square format with two white anchors in saltire defacing the blue stripe in its middle. Based on editions of Album des Pavillons the flag was brought into use between 1995 and 2000 (or 1998, when already it was reported by Paige Herring).
Željko Heimer, 20 December 2002

Navy Jack, 1995-1998(?)

2:3, by Željko Heimer

A light blue flag with the national flag in the canton and a black outlined anchor in the middle of the fly half. The naval jack in the same pattern as the current naval rank flags was mentioned in Romanian official documents on 19-Nov-1995, and this is probably the date of the adoption, too. (Are the other rank flags from that they too?). It was abandoned before March 1998.
Željko Heimer, 22 December 2002

This information came from a booklet of the Romanian Navy itself. Since then, I saw a Romanian frigate in a port visit here; she had a different jack: plain tricolor with two white intertwined anchors in the blue. I took a photo and this new jack will appear in the next correction to the album.
Armand Noel du Payrat, 5 May 1998

Corr. 27 to the French Navy Album was based on an official Romanian Naval document dated 19 November 1995.
Armand Noel du Payrat, 6 May 1998

The image was reproduced in FOTW format from images at the Romanian Military website, but the detail of the anchor is my problem. It shows a single blue foul anchor with black holding lines. Any change must have been quite recent.
Calvin Paige Herring, 5 May, 1998

Masthead Pennant

~1:10, by Željko Heimer

Triangular pennant in the national colours. This was used since mid 19th century, right?
Željko Heimer, 20 December 2002

Coastguard Ensign

Album des Pavillons (1990 edition) shows a Coast Guard Ensign, with the blue stripe replaced with green. Image captioned no. 2 shows the (current) coat of arms, so there is no hint what naval ensign was meant, and neither what the Coastguard ensign would have been.
Željko Heimer, 22 December 2002