Signalling the Mail 1930s
By the 1930s a method of signalling the impending arrival of a mail steamer at Aden was still needed, but since that in force in 1899 described in Signalling the Mail the system had been made somewhat more complicated. Those looking out for a flag hoist would have needed this chart to hand!
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In case the reader is unable to read the wording, I will describe how the system worked. Looking at the lower table of Post Office Signals, which were to be hoisted on the P & O flagstaff with the distinguishing Mail Flag (i.e. one of those in the upper table) uppermost, one can work out how using two flags only from the lower table the ETA could be hoisted to the nearest half hour. If a ship was expected on the hour the a.m. or p.m. pennant would be above the hour flag; if it was expected on the half-hour the hour flag would be on top. A pennant flown by itself would indicate either noon or midnight, and both pennants together, depending which was on top, would be either 0030 or 1230. From the Signalling the Mail article one can see that the Noon pennant was three red and two white stripes, and the Midnight pennant a white circle on a blue background. Note that there was also a ‘Tomorrow’ flag (white rectangle on a red background). This part of the system was unchanged from that in force at the end of the previous century.
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Looking now at the upper table the key signals were the two pennants: the ‘Mail from England’ pennant (the Royal Mail pennant), which is the right-hand one in the third row; and the ‘Mail from Bombay, China and India’ pennant (three white crosses on a red background), which is the left-hand one in the fourth row.
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My assumption is that the regular Royal Mail contract steamers did not also need a Mail Flag of the company carrying the mail to be hoisted as well. But all other steamers carrying mail would have the Company flag hoisted in place of a mail pennant. Below the examples of Company flags (and also of warship ensigns of those Navies likely to call at Aden) is a clarification: ‘The above flags are hoisted at the East or West yard arm according to direction in which a steamer is sighted.’ Thus the public could tell whether, for instance, a Rotterdam Lloyd steamer was inward or outward bound.
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The chart (to follow) shows which Agent (P & O, Luke Thomas, Cory, Cowasjee Dinshaw, etc) was handling the ships of the company concerned. The reader will have noticed the vertical dark and light balls alongside the Company flags. This was a belt-and-braces fallback for when there was still air, with flags hanging limp and unreadable on the yard arm. There were not enough combinations for every shipping company to have a dedicated ball signal, although the chief ones did.
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A word or two about the top row in the upper table and the small one-row table at the bottom of the sheet: The latter was for use by vessels taking on oil rather than coal, and covered useful instructions like ‘stop pumping’ and ‘pump more slowly’. The former gave further information of progress, such as ‘vessel entering outer harbour’ plus a necessary ‘port surgeon required’. The final bit of useful information was how the daily time check would be signalled (noted under ‘Times Signals’). The Fort Morbut flagstaff (as opposed to the P & O flagstaff) would hoist a time flag (? The noon pennant) at 11.55 daily. In true naval tradition the executive, i.e. in this case the denoting of midday, would be the hauling down of the flag.