The flag was made by Petty Officer Sharp aboard HMS Unbroken. It was sold by his grandson Gordon Sharp, who said he hoped it would “go to a museum so other people can see it”. The flag was auctioned at the Tank Museum in Bovington.
When the flag came to light in the loft, Mr Sharp said: “I didn’t know what it was at first - it was incredible to be holding a bit of history in your hand. It was made from scraps of material onboard the submarine. It’s quite large so I’m not sure where he kept it on such a small submarine, perhaps he used it as a pillow.”
Unbroken spent much of the war in the Mediterranean operating out of Malta (1).
Dorchester-based auction house Duke’s said: “The stars and cannon represent four merchant vessels sunk with the deck gun. The white bars signify merchant ships and the red bars warships. The daggers show that Unbroken undertook four ‘Cloak and Dagger Operations’.”
(1) In the first half of WWII, Malta and the Mediterranean were particularly hazardous areas of operations for the British. Malta became, allegedly and for a time, the most bombed place on earth and the surviving islanders starved as relief convoys were sunk.
Obviously, from the flag, Unbroken must have participated in the fight back against the Nazis and with some success. To have survived at all was an achievement:
**By the time of the September 1943 armistice between Italy and the Allies, Italian ships, submarines and aircraft had sunk Allied surface warships totalling 145,800 tons, while the Germans had sunk 169,700 tons, for a total of 315,500 tons. In total the Allies lost 76 warships and 46 submarines.
The photo of the crew is fascinating with some intriguing characters waiting to be identified. I’m sure that the sailor at the back, who would seem far too tall to serve on a submarine, would be called either “Lofty” or “Tich” … 