I have been collecting Submarine and related patches since 1967 then I went to Machinist Mate "A" school at the Great Lakes, and over the years have come to view this process of collecting patches as a modern form of Heraldry. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia on the web defines it as "…in its most general sense encompasses all matters relating to the duties and responsibilities of officers of arms." To most, though, heraldry is the practice of designing, displaying, describing, and recording coats of arms and badges." The origins of heraldry lie in the need to distinguish participants in combat when their faces were hidden by iron and steel helmets.

So, with that crusaders were some of the earliest warriors to wear a distinctive badge. They wore a red cross over their hearts to the best of my knowledge this served two purposes; first it displayed the solider as a Christian and secondly it showed their enemy where to shoot their arrows. Advancing many years to the future, various devises were used to distinguish military personnel, from colors of uniforms to insignias on their utility belts. During the Franco-Prussian, war the Prussian Army wore a dark blue colored field jacket that was very distinctive and that color later became known as Prussian blue. Many an old motor mechanics or machinist mates can remember using that dark-blue paste to perform lay out work on sheet metal projects.

Jumping up to the Twentieth century specifically around World War I most American military units had their designators to help identify them to their Allied forces. Although I have not seen any distinctive marking for naval units other that the ship's name worn on the enlisted man dress cover (hat), I cannot say for certainty that unit patches were not issued. In the years prior to WWII, the enlisted man's cover took a change displaying what ship he was on to saying U. S. NAVY. This was probably more of a security issue depriving spies from easily identifying which vessel was in port.

Some time during WWII enterprising crews started painting their ships depicting their victories, as did fighter pilots and bombers. One off shoot of this was the famous nose art seen on many of the Bombers. Not to be out done, the Naval Department (probably) contacted the Walt Disney Company to have them develop unique character identifiers for the various naval vessels. From these characters, battle flags were designed which incorporated the cartoon character and the various victories/actions they were involved with. So this led to the ship's crest or what we today call the ship's patch. Once again, I am not sure on the time frame or the exact transition. The only thing I have learnt over the years is that numerous people have been involved in the development of their ship's patch / battle flag or specialty patch and if one digs deep enough there is generally an interesting history behind the design.

This curiosity has been the driver for this section of PigBoat.COM. As I have assembled my collection of patches, I always attempted to obtain as much information as possible about the patch. Although, my knowledge is limited I am sharing the stories that I have gathered, and if anyone visiting this site would like to provide any additional information on any patch please feel free to contact me and your story will be added. Additionally, if you own a patch that is not displayed and you would like to have it added for other individual to view we would appreciate a picture or scan and we will credit you with the display.

One last short story about submarine patch history can be found at the following link {Sid Harrison's website} in regards to the early days of submarine service and the black fish flag. So I hope you enjoy this portion of Pigboats website and visit it often.

Rick Larson, MMCM (SS)(Retired)
© September 2007