First Navy Jack
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Image:Naval Jack of the United States.svg
The First Navy Jack is the current authorized US Navy Jack, as well as having historical significance.
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[edit] History
In the fall of 1775, as the first ships of the Continental Navy readied in the Delaware River, Commodore Esek Hopkins issued, in a set of fleet signals, an instruction directing his vessels to fly a striped Jack and Ensign. In retrospect this has been taken as the first U.S. Navy Jack and has traditionally been shown as consisting of thirteen red and white stripes with a superimposed rattlesnake and the motto "Dont Tread on Me" (sic). No representation or example of the ensign survives: patriotic historians have inferred the design from Hopkins' message and a color plate depicting a "Dont Tread Upon Me" ensign in Admiral George Henry Preble's History of the Flag of the United States, 1880. Recent scholarship, however, has demonstrated that this inferred design never actually existed but "was a 19th-century mistake based on an erroneous 1776 engraving".<ref>Ansoff, Peter. (2004). The First Navy Jack. Raven: A Journal of Vexillology, 11, ISSN 1071-0043, LCCN 94-220.</ref>
The rattlesnake had long been a symbol of resistance to the British in Colonial America. The phrase “Don't tread on me” was coined during the American Revolutionary War, a variant perhaps of the snake severed in segments labelled with the names of the colonies and the legend "Join or Die" which had appeared first in Benjamin Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette in 1754, as a political cartoon reflecting on the Albany Congress.
The rattlesnake - the Timber Rattlesnake - is especially significant and symbolic to the American Revolution. The rattle has thirteen layers, signifying the original Thirteen Colonies. And, the snake does not strike until provoked, a method embodied in the phrase "Don't tread on me."
[edit] Modern usage
The First Navy Jack was first used in recent history during the Bicentennial year, 1976, when all commissioned naval vessels were directed to fly it for the entire year, in lieu of the standard fifty-star jack.In 1980, Edward Hidalgo, the Secretary of the Navy, directed that the ship with the longest active status shall display the First Navy Jack until decommissioned or transferred to inactive service. Then the flag will be passed to the next ship in line. This honor was conferred on the following U.S. Navy vessels:
- 1981 - 1982: Destroyer tender USS Dixie (AD 14), commissioned 1940
- 1982 - 1993: Destroyer tender USS Prairie (AD 15), commissioned 1940
- 1993 - 1993: Submarine tender USS Orion (AS 18), commissioned 1943
- 1993 - 1995: Repair Ship USS Jason (AR 8), commissioned 1944
- 1995 - 1995: Ammunition ship USS Mauna Kea (AE 22), commissioned 1957
- 1995 - 1998: Aircraft carrier USS Independence (CV 62), commissioned 1959.
- On September 30, 1998, the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk (CV 63), commissioned in 1961, became the oldest active-status ship in the United States Navy upon the decommissioning of Independence.
- Upon Kitty Hawk's expected 2009 decommissioning, USS Enterprise (CVN-65), commissioned 1961, will hold that honor.
The Secretary of the Navy issued Instruction 10520.6, dated 31 May 2002, directing all United States Navy ships to fly this flag in honor of those killed in the September 11, 2001 attacks, and it will be flown for the duration of the War on Terrorism. Most US navy vessels made the switch on September 11, 2002, the first anniversary of the terrorist attacks.
[edit] Reference
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