The Red Ensign: Myths & Facts

Fighting for the Flags

A Brief History of Australia's Flags

Why the Flag Should Change

The Australian Red Ensign:
Myths and Facts

Our opponents in this debate like to rewrite history and pretend that our current national flag – the blue Australian ensign – has been our national flag forever and that people have "fought and died" for it. This is one of their prime arguments against change, and they use it very emotively. They ignore the Red Ensign, despite its overwhelming use in Australia and overseas during the first half of the 20th century.

There are many problems with this argument. The first is that the blue ensign became Australia's national flag only in 1954. Prior to that date, its use by ordinary citizens was strongly and actively discouraged. The blue flag was not some glorious and romantic flag of the people, but an instrument of Government, much like the Coat of Arms.

This meant that the public didn't officially have a flag to fly other than the Union Jack, which is what many people did. In this official vacuum, if anyone wanted a more Australian symbol they used the red ensign as a de-facto Civil Flag. It was not strictly correct, but it happened at every level of the community, including the Armed Services.

The second problem with this argument is that members of the Armed Services in Australia never "fought and died" for a flag anyway. They fought and died for our country - a subtle but important difference.

The third problem is that there is a wealth of pictorial evidence which proves that the red ensign was the flag which both the public and members of the Armed Services overwhelmingly related to and "adopted" as Australia's de-facto national flag prior to 1954. This period of course includes both World War I and World War II.

In fact, in 1967, prime minister Robert Menzies wrote in his book Afternoon Light, Some Memories of Men and Events

"In the year of my birth 1894 - Queen Victoria was on the throne of the United Kingdom and Ireland and the Dominions and Colonies beyond the Seas... For us, the maps of the world were patterned with great areas of red, at a time when red was a respectable colour."

It seems clear Menzies' arbitrary changing in 1954 of the then popular Red Ensign to blue, without consulting the Australian people, was for blatant political purposes in his campaign against the "red" communist peril.

Finally, if you don't believe that the anti-change brigade rewrite history, have a look at the example below.

This image is the original image held by the Australian War Museum of Sergeant T.C. Derrick (DCM, and later VC) of Adelaide raising the Blue Ensign at Sattleberg in Papua New Guinea on 3 December 1943. Sergeant Derrick led a South Australian Unit in a successful attack against the Japanese held village of Sattleberg, and hoisted an Australian Flag. Derrick's biographer interviewed men who were there and confirmed that it was a Red Ensign.

This is the same image used on the cover of the book Five Fighting Years. What you wouldn't realise by looking at this, and what they don't tell you, is that the original red ensign has been obliterated by a hand-drawn colour image of the Blue Ensign. For many anti-flag changers, the real history of the Australian flag is terribly inconvenient for their argument. When it doesn't suit their "patriotic" purposes to be historically accurate, they merely invent something more suitable.

The best indication of what the soldiers themselves thought is in the ensigns that are on display at the Australian War Memorial and the RAAF Museum. In the Australian War Memorial, the red ensigns on display outnumber the blue ensigns in the World War I period by about ten to one.

Look at all the following images and draw your own conclusion.

Most of this material is courtesy of Ted Harris of the Digger History website, reproduced with permission.

		Australian Flag Mythology Poster This poster shows a red ensign which is hanging at the Breakwater Battery Museum at Port Kembla, NSW. The inscription on the flag says "The red flag was the standard national flag from 1901 until after WW2. The blue Australian flag did not become general issue until after WW2. This is the flag our troops fought under in World Wars One and Two."
		Click on each image to enlarge.

See also...

History of the Australian Red Ensign (Ausflag page)
Flag of Inconvenience? (Magazine article 1993)
Australian Flag Myths Exposed (Ausflag media release 1994)
New flag advocates see red over historical blue ensign (Newspaper article 1997)
The debate on a new flag (Newspaper editorial 1998)
A flag for the New Millennium (Magazine article 2001)
Flag group sees red on giveaways (Newspaper article 2001)
Australia's national symbol by default (Newspaper article 2001)