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Australian Naval Staff

Chief of Navy/(former) Naval Board
Secretary, Department of Navy (now obsolete)
Naval Officer Commanding Car Flag
Rank Flags

See also:

Chief of Navy/(Former) Naval Board

by Martin Grieve, 28 August 2002

According to Album 2000 the flag of the Chief of Naval Staff is crimson over dark blue, with a gold admiralty anchor with ropes. This flag was formerly the flag of the Australian Naval Board.
Željko Heimer, 5 February 2001 and Miles Li, 27 February 2002

They changed the titles recently from 'Chief of Naval / General / Air Staff' to 'Chief of Navy / Army / Air Force'.
Miles Li, 22 November 2003

In 1920, the Australian Naval Board Flag was to follow the general style of the Lord High Admiral or Admiralty Flag, of a yellow horizontal anchor on a red flag, but the Australian Government proposed either a white horizontal stockless anchor on a blue flag, or a yellow one on a red flag. The Admiralty wanted the flag to be divided horizontally red over blue, as this made it possible to construct a "family" of naval board flags. Canada's, as used until 1960, was divided diagonally, red to the hoist; New Zealand's is divided vertically, red to the hoist, and Union of South Africa's was to have been quartered diagonally. The Admiralty had no objection to a stockless anchor, but in the event a conventional anchor was chosen.
David Prothero, 25 Apr 2000

From memory, and a rough sketch, the appearance of the anchor is exactly the same as the anchor on the Defence Force Ensign, though it's hard to be sure if the proportions are the same.
Roughly:
Flag 1:2
Extreme width of anchor 2/3rds of the width of flag.
Extreme length of anchor, including the anchor ring which is in line with the shank, 1.8 times the width.
Anchor centred horizontally, with the arms in the fly of the flag. The chain, rectangular links, runs in a very shallow S, from the anchor ring towards the top of the flag, descends in front of the shank and disappears behind the lower fluke.

Incidentally the conventional drawing of a traditional anchor is, as the representation of a real anchor, unusable. To work, the stock, the bar across the top of the anchor, has to be at right angles to the arms, and should therefore be visible only as a small circle or square little wider than the width of the upright part of the anchor. I can think of only two instances in which the anchor is drawn in perspective to make this apparent; Canadian Jack, and Bangladesh Admirals' Flags.
David Prothero, 26 Apr 2000

The Army Ceremonial Manual (PDF) gives this flag two sizes: 91.5cm by 1.37m, and 15cm by 23cm. While the full-sized flag's given proportions of 2:3 does match other naval flag officers' rank flags, the Chief of Navy flag (formerly the Australian Naval Board flag), has traditionally had the proportions of 1:2 (as shown on the RAAF Manual of Ceremonial and a host of other publications, including Flags of All Nations [hms58], Admiralty Manual of Seamanship, and pre-1950s Jane's Fighting Ships [jfs]).
Miles Li, 10 November 2007

Secretary, Department of the Navy (now obsolete)

by Miles Li, 23 June 2004

The flag for the Secretary, Department of the Navy was as for the Australian Naval Board, but with borders all round (dark blue over crimson). (source: Flags Of All Nations 1958 [hms58])
Miles Li, 27 February 2002

According to FOAN Vol 2 [hms58], the (now obsolete) flag of Secretary, Department of the Navy (Australia) should have the proportions of 1:2.
Miles Li, 23 June 2004

Naval Officer Commanding: Car Flag

The Naval Officer Commanding's car flag is a forked pennant a la Commodore, but shorter and with teh red ball replaced by a blue anchor of the type in the joint services flag.
Source: Album 2000
Željko Heimer, 5 February 2001

Rank Flags

A note to the flag of the Chief of Naval Staff in Album 2000 says that the Australian rank flags for Admiral to Commodore are the same as in the British Royal Navy.
Željko Heimer, 5 February 2001