Neutral ship (plane) marking 1939

[Kari Lumppio]

Hello Folks!

In photos (1939-40 era mainly) one can often see neutral country ships with enormous flags painted on their sides. Also the name of the country is also painted in huge letters on the ships' sides.

I believe these markings were introduced September 1939 (or even earlier?) when WW2 broke out. Neutral country ships had to be marked clearly to avoid being shot at.

Similar markings can be seen also on some of the airliners of the era. I believe I have seen such markings (National flags on wing tips and tail plus country name painted on fuselage) on Finnish, Swedish, Danish and Estonian planes. Does anyone know if Dutch, Belgian, Norwegian, Latvian, Lithuanian etc airlines took the neutrality markings in use?

I believe that the markings were regulated by some international act or law. All of my searches in internet for such have been in vain up to date. Perhaps UK naval certification issuer (which was??) or somesuch has details of these markings?

What I am most interested in is if the markings were recommendation only or a requirement when entering a war/blockade zone? And secondly what the markings were supposed to be? There seems to have been some variaton in the application (reading direction of the country names on fuselage for example).

Any and all tips where I could find more information of the issue of the neutrality markings are welcomed.


Thanking in advance,
Kari

[Leendert]

Hei Kari,

You might be interested to see http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/INTRO?OpenView that has a long list of applicable laws and conventions between states at war and neutral states.

Tervehdys,

Leendert
Brugge/Belgia

[Juha]

Hello Kari
IIRC Dutch playd it safe and painted their airliners orange. But that is only IIRC info, I have not time to try to find the source. I think that there was no clear regulations for airliners but the purpose was to make it clear to everyone that they were civilian a/c and to show clearly their nationality.

Probably the ship markings were clearer regulated. Airliners were newer phenomenol than ships.

[shooshoobaby]

Kari -
American Aircraft on Neutrality patrols has a large
AAC Star on both sides of Nose.
Mike