Jolly Roger
The
Jolly Roger is the traditional
flag of European and American
pirates, envisioned today as a
skull over crossed
bones on a black field.
The origins of the term "Jolly Roger" are unclear.
One theory is that it comes from the French term "joli rouge," ("red beauty") which the English corrupted into "Jolly Roger". This may be likely as there were a series of "red flags" that were feared as much, or more, than "black flags". The origin of the red flag is likely that English
privateers flew the
red jack by order of the
Admiralty in
1694. When the
War of Spanish Succession ended in
1714, many privateers turned to piracy and some retained the red flag, as red symbolized blood. No matter how much seamen dreaded the black pirate
standard, all prayed they never encountered the
joli rouge. This red flag boldly declared the pirates' intentions: no life would be spared. No quarter given, none asked. In combat practice many merchants were surprised when a fast ship changed a fellow national flag for the more portentous Jolly Roger, which was the desired effect.
Another theory proposes that the leader of a group of Asian pirates was called
Ali Raja; English pirates appropriated and corrupted the term.
A further theory is that the name derives from the English word "roger", whence "rogue", meaning a wandering vagabond. "Old Roger" was a term for the
devil.
In his book
Pirates & The Lost Templar Fleet, David Hatcher Childress claims that the flag was named after the first man to fly it, King
Roger II of Sicily (c.
1095-
1154). Roger was a famed Templar and the Knights Of The Temple [
1] were in conflict with the
Pope over his conquests of
Apulia and
Salerno in
1127. Childress claims that, many years later, after the Templars were disbanded by the church, at least one Templar fleet split into four independent flotillas dedicating themselves to pirating ships of any country sympathetic to Rome. The flag was thus an inheritance, and its crossed bones a reference to the original Templar logo of a red cross with blunted ends.
But this seems unlikely, as the
Knights Templar used a Greek cross (✚) and not the Andreas cross (Χ) as used on pirates' flags.The real origin may simply lay in the fact that from early Roman times on and all through the Middle Ages, skulls and long bones were on display in catacombs, monasteries, churches, church crypts and graveyards. They are the bones that resist decay longest and remain, long after the corpse had gone. They were then carefully laid out respecting the dead.Later, skull and long bones crossed were depicted or sculpted in said places and especially above the entrances to church and graveyard. They served as a
Memento Mori, meaning "Remind yourself of your own death." It was a general warning against the sin of vanity by reminding the bypassers of their mortality. No Emperor, King, Knight, Clergy or Layman was different from those gone before. Thus, it became at once a common symbol of death, decay and a warning against the vagaries of Fortune, as well as a first hint of an emerging sense of democracy. In death, we are all equal. No doubt this old complex of meanings played a role in later Renaissance privateers and pirates adopting the symbol for their own.
At first sight, it might seem a bad idea to forewarn your quarry by flying the Jolly Roger. However, its use may be seen as an early form of
psychological warfare. A pirate's primary aim is to capture the target ship intact along with any cargo it may be carrying. With a sufficiently bloodthirsty reputation, a pirate flying the Jolly Roger could intimidate the crew of a target ship into surrender, allowing the ship to be captured without firing a shot. Typically, if a ship then decided to resist, the Jolly Roger was taken down and a red flag was then flown, indicating that the pirates intend to take the ship by force and without mercy. It was hoped by many crews that this course of action would help spread the word that resistance was a poor idea for ships.
Flying the Jolly Roger too early as the only flag has its drawbacks. The quarry might have sufficient warning to attempt an escape. Also, warships were often under standing orders to fire at will at a ship flying this flag.
There were many variations and additional emblems on actual Jolly Rogers.
Calico Jack Rackham and
Thomas Tew used variations with swords.
Edward Teach (a.k.a.
Blackbeard) used a
skeleton holding an
hourglass in one hand and a
spear or
dart in the other while standing beside a bleeding
heart.
Bartholomew Roberts (a.k.a.
Black Bart) had two variations: a man and a skeleton, who held a spear or dart in one hand, holding either an hourglass or a cup while toasting death or an armed man standing on two skulls over the letters ABH (A Barbadian's Head) and AMH (A Martiniquais' Head -- a warning to residents of
Barbados and
Martinique that death awaited them). Dancing skeletons signified that the pirates cared little for their
fate.
Image:Pirate Flag of Rack Rackham.svg|Calico Jack Rackham's FlagImage:Pirate Flag of Emanuel Wynne.svg|Emanuel Wynne's FlagImage:Pirate Flag of Blackbeard (Edward Teach).svg|"Blackbeard" Edward Teach's FlagImage:Pirate Flag of Henry Every.svg|Henry Every's FlagImage:Pirate Flag of Thomas Tew.svg|Thomas Tew's FlagImage:Pirate Flag of Stede Bonnet.svg|Stede Bonnet's FlagImage:Flag of Edward England.svg| Flag of Edward EnglandImage:Flag of Christopher Moody.svg| Flag of Christopher Moody |
ORP Sokół returning from a World War II patrol flying her Jolly Roger (which traditionally signifies a successful combat mission); and a kill indicated by the swastika flag flown |
Admiral Sir
Arthur Wilson VC, the Controller of the
Royal Navy, summed up the opinion of the many in the
Admiralty at the time when he said in 1901 "Submarines are underhand, unfair and damned un-English. The crews of all submarines captured should be treated as pirates and hanged." In response Lieutenant Commander (later Admiral Sir)
Max Horton first flew the Jolly Roger on return to port after sinking the German cruiser
SMS Hela and the destroyer
SMS S-116 in 1914. During
World War I, the submarine service came of age, winning five of the Royal Navy's fourteen
Victoria Crosses, the first by Lieutenant
Norman Holbrook, Commanding Officer of
HMS B11. In
World War II it became common practice for the submarines of the Royal Navy and
Royal Australian Navy to fly the Jolly Roger on completion of a successful combat mission where some action had taken place, but as an indicator of bravado and stealth rather than of lawlessness. The Jolly Roger is now the emblem of the
Royal Navy Submarine Service.
[General information on the Royal Navy Submarine Service use and history of the Jolly Roger]
* Royal Navy Submarines "A TRIBUTE TO THE PAST"
* Royal Navy Submarine Museum: WWII flashes added to a Jolly Roger
* Royal Navy Submarine Museum: Jolly Roger Examples The Jolly Roger was brought to the attention of a post World War II public when
HMS Conqueror flew the Jolly Roger on her return from the
Falklands War having sunk
ARA General Belgrano. In May 1991
Oberon class submarines
HMS Opossum and her sister
HMS Otus returned to the submarine base
HMS Dolphin in
Gosport from patrol in the
Persian Gulf flying Jolly Rogers, the only indication that they had been involved in alleged
SAS and
SBS reconnaissance operations
[Opossum and Otus were seen returning to HMS Dolphin ... with a jolly roger]. In 1999
HMS Splendid participated in the
Kosovo Conflict and became the first Royal Navy submarine to fire a
cruise missile in anger. On her return to
Faslane, on
July 9 1999,
Splendid flew the Jolly Roger.
[Barton Gellman U.S., NATO Launch Attacks on Yugoslavia Washington Post 25 March 1999][Swiftsure Class Nuclear Fleet Submarines] After
Operation Veritas, the attack on Al-Qaeda and Taliban forces following the
9/11 attacks in the United States,
HMS Trafalgar entered
Plymouth Sound flying the Jolly Roger on
March 1 2002. She was welcomed back by Admiral Sir
Alan West, Commander-in-Chief of the fleet and it emerged she was the first Royal Navy submarine to launch tomahawk cruise missiles against Afghanistan,
[ Trafalgar Returns March 1, 2002].
HMS Triumph was also involved in the initial strikes and on returning to port had a Jolly Roger emblazoned with two crossed Tomahawks to indicate her opening missiles salvoes in the
"war against terrorism" and
HMS Superb's whose flag had a dagger, for force protection, a bee for her nickname (the Super B), and two communications flashes
[HMS Triumph and HMS Superb].
More recently, on
April 16,
2003,
HMS Turbulent, the first Royal Navy vessel to return home from the war against Iraq, arrived in Plymouth flying the Jolly Roger after launching thirty
Tomahawk cruise missiles.
[Cruise missile sub (HMS Turbulent) back in UK by Richard Norton-Taylor in The Guardian April 17, 2003]The use of the Jolly Roger by U.S. naval aviation dates back to the formation of VF-17 in January of 1943. Flying the
Chance Vought F4U "Corsair," VF-17 produced more aces than any other squadron and many top aces. VF-17 initated the use of the Jolly Roger, and it is still in use at present.For fifty years, the "Bones" used a distinctive black-and-gold paint scheme that was instantly identifiable from a great distance, and feared by their foes. During the 1990s, under official orders, the Bones experimented with a low-visibility paint scheme, trading their bold colors for subdued greys. However, they eventually returned their fighters to their classic colors.
VFA-103 is the current "Bones"
fighter squadron of the
U.S. Navy. The Fighting Eighty-Four carried the Jolly Rogers name for 40 years before being deactivated on September 29, 1995. Two days later, the Fighting 103 (formerly the Sluggers) would become the fourth fighter squadron to carry the Skull and Crossbones.
Jolly Roger Squadron history:
*
VF-17/VF-5B/VF-61**Activated:
January 1,
1943**Aircraft:
F4U Corsair**Distestablished:
April 10,
1944**Reestablished: 1944
**Aircraft:
F6F Hellcat,
F8F Bearcat**Redesignated as VF-5B: 1946
**Redesignated as
VF-61 ("Fighting 61"): April 28, 1948
**Deactivated: April 15, 1959
**Aircraft: F9F Cougar*VF-84 ("Fighting 84")
**Activated: July 1, 1955
***Acquired Jolly Rogers name: April 1, 1960
**Deactivated: September 29, 1995
**Aircraft: FJ Fury, F-8 Crusader, F-4 Phantom II, F-14 Tomcat
*VFA-103' ("Fighting 103")
**Activated: October,
1995***Re-designated VFA-103 from VF-103 February, 2005
**Still active
as of 2006**Aircraft: F-14 Tomcat,
F/A-18E/F Super Hornet*A skull with crossbones on a black background is also the flag of the
Chetniks.
*"Jolly Roger" was the code name of the
computer virus used to infect the
alien mothership on the movie
Independence Day*The textfile version of
the Anarchist Cookbook VI v4.44 was released maintained by a man who identified himself as "the Jolly Roger". The version number was kept for several subsequent additions in honor of a group of
phreaks called the 414's, after their phone number area code.
*The Jolly Roger was the name of
Captain Hook's pirate ship in
Peter Pan.
*
Jolly Rogers was the name of a 1970s record label, owned by country singer
Kenny Rogers and distributed by
MGM.
* The
Jolly Rogers is a successful Reniassance Faire performance group based out of Kansas City.
* Jolly Roger was also the pseudonym disc jockey
Eddie Richards used when he released his seminal 80's acid house track "Acid Man", which samples
Dennis Hopper's character from the film
Easy Rider* Jolly Roger is one of the characters of the
cartoons,
I Am Weasel and
Cow and Chicken.
* When entering the
Persian Gulf, some
U.S. Navy ships will take down the ensign from the mast and replace it with the Jolly Roger, much like their British counterparts.
*
A version of the skull and crossbones was incorporated as one of the
battle flags of the
Katipunan, specifically, that used by General
Llanera and his troops when they fought in the provinces of
Bulacan,
Tarlac,
Pampanga, and
Nueva Ecija. It is a black flag with a white letter "K" and the Jolly Roger side-by-side. It was known as
"Bungo ni Llanera" or "Llanera's Skull". [
2]
* "
Under Jolly Roger" is a song (and album) by the
speed/
power metal band
Running Wild* There is a level called "Jolly Roger's Lagoon' in the game,
Banjo-Tooie.
*
Brett Helquist wrote and illustrated
Roger, the Jolly Pirate in
2004.
*Modified Jolly Rogers form part of the logos for the
Oakland Raiders and the
Tampa Bay Buccaneers of the
National Football League.
* There is a Jolly Roger painted over the cockpit of the
VF-1S piloted by
Roy Focker in the animated series
Robotech. His squadron is called Skull Squadron, and their colors and insignia are based on the VFA-103 Jolly Rogers described above. (This is partly because the VF-1 resembles the F-14s that the Jolly Rogers are famous for.)
* There are various movies of this name, including one publicized by Science Fiction Channel in June, 2006, & July, 2006:
Search IMDb.
* The Jolly Roger is the fans' logo for
FC St Pauli, currently in the German Third Division
Regionalliga Nord.
* Not always taken seriously: here's a photo of megayacht
Capri flying the Jolly Roger in Monaco
* "Jolly Roger" was the name of the leader of an all-
lesbian cell of
The Invisibles, a
comic book by
Grant Morrison.
*
Skull and cross bones
