Japanese Naval Signal Flag #7—Code "Nana" 最初の7の日本の海軍艦隊信号-名前「なな」

The Japanese Maritime Flag for Seven has two diagonals and two triangular ends and consists of three colours: red, yellow, and blue.  In the upper hoist corner is the red triangle and in the lower fly is a yellow triangle.  In between these corners are two stripes is a yellow then blue stripe.  All the divisions follow a dexter bend, with the blue bend separating the two yellow parts.

The Japanese do not have short or odd vowels, so when saying words in 'English-Latin' script the letters are pronounced phonetically.  Forexample, the word Nana なな both Na's are the same.  English has tendency to make each vowels sound different as in the word Banana (as the middle a has a different a sound, unless you area Minion from Dreamworks).

 Several days after scouring the internet  a real flag of the unique Japanese Auxiliary Naval signal number flag was found.  After going to Yahoo! instead of Google, was I able to find this artifact.  And it is for sale; apparently it was used in combat during WWII.

Here is a close up of the tag, that indicates it is indeed an Imperial Japanese Navy Signal flag. There is red ink that has Japanese Kanji upon it with other symbols that are hard to decipher.


Source of Image
http://www.wwiidaggers.com/33997.htm






    

Japanese Naval Signal Flag #6—Code "Roku" 最初の6の日本の海軍艦隊信号-名前「ろく」

The Roku or ろく is the Japanese Maritime Flag for the Number Six.  It has a white field with red dexter bend.

The Number 6 Auxiliary Japanese Naval flag is visible with the cover art of this model, Yamato model ship.  It is the flag in between Juliette and Golf. 

Japanese Naval Signal Flag #5—Code "Go" 最初の5の日本の海軍艦隊信号-名前「ご」

The Japanese Maritime Flag for the Number 5 is the inverse of Romeo.  It has yellow field with red cross.

Note that IJN #5 Aux Flag is the inverse of the Romeo-R ICS flag.

You can see the Go flag in use with IJN Coded Signals.  The Imperial Japanese Navy Auxiliary Number flags were used International Maritime Flags in the Japanese Navy.

Japanese Naval Signal Flag #4—Code "Yon" 最初の4の日本の海軍艦隊信号-名前「よん」

The Japanese Maritime four flag has four blue dots, which any civilization can recognizes as a good representation of the number four.















The Imperial Naval Signal flags are a rarity of a flags.  They mostly live on in the memory of history books. 

Japanese Naval Signal Flag #3—Code "San" 最初の3の日本の海軍艦隊信号-名前「さん」

The Japanese number 3 three is basically an echo of the Kanji - Chinese Character - for the number three.  The Kanji for three consists of three horizontal stripes.

Japanese Naval Signal Flag #2—Code "Futa" 最初の2の日本の海軍艦隊信号-名前「ふた」

The Japanese Naval signal flag for the number 2 is called Futa ふた.  The design of the flag has a blue field with two yellow rectangles along in the middle of the flag near the fly and hoist.

 The unique Japanese auxiliary number flags were used with international maritime flags.  Recently in an Anime series about female sailors, the Aux #2 flag has appeared leading with X-Ray and India for a code of 2XI.

Japanese Naval Signal Flag #1—Code "Hito" 最初の1の日本の海軍艦隊信号-名前「ひと」

There are several types of maritime flags to represent the number one.  Most famously the International Maritime standard uses a flag that looks like the national flag of Japan.  However it is a pennant and the red disc is off center towards the hoist.

NATO has number one flag that looks like the of Spain; because it is a horizontal tribar of red, yellow, red.  Thus its nickname is 'UNO'.

Russia oddly uses the International Maritime flag in a different way for its numbers.  The Alpha flag is the number one flag for Russian allied fleets.  Luckily Alpha is also the first letter of the alphabet, so it makes sense.

But the Japanese Navy has created unique flags.  Their flags have an International Maritime feel, but they are unique to Japan.

The Number 1 flag of Japanese Naval forces has a white background with blue diagonal stripe from the lower hoist to the upper fly (a dexter bend).  In a what the Japanese flag is very effective since the single blue line is a unique flag even among national flags and reflects the single line of one, as it is used in Western and Chinese symbols.  The Indo-Arabic-Western number for one in a single vertical line, while the Eastern symbol for one is single horizontal line.