Markings on British aircraft

On 12 November 1914, according to the British chronicle of the war, an order was issued that all aircraft of the Royal Flying Corps were to carry identification marks. This is the date of the routine order which, according to some studies, introduced on British aircraft a roundel of concentric circles modelled on the marking of the French air service. Other sources regard its formal adoption as dating only from 11 December 1914, with the new marks being painted on in the squadrons from 12 December.

The problem was the same one that a few weeks earlier had led the Germans to paint black crosses. Soldiers on the ground, unable to tell their own aircraft from the enemy’s, fired at all of them. So in the very first weeks of the war, according to some sources under an order from the end of August, the British began to paint the Union flag under the lower wings and later also on the fuselages. Close up it was clearly visible, but from greater height and distance what stood out most was the red cross of St George, which was easily mistaken for the German cross. Attempts were also made to place the flag on a shield, but that did not help either.

At the end of October the headquarters of the Royal Flying Corps in France, headed by General David Henderson, asked the French whether they would object to the British adopting a roundel similar to the one on their aircraft. The French marking had a blue centre, a white ring and a red outer edge. The British reversed the order of the colours. The order required concentric circles to be painted on the undersides of the wings and on the rudder, “similar to those on the French machines, but with the colours reversed, that is a red circle inside a blue ring”, as large as possible. At the wingtips, outside the circles, a small Union flag was also to be added.

The naval air service, the Royal Naval Air Service, adopted its own marking at the end of 1914: a red ring with a white centre. The new markings were introduced gradually. Only in June 1915 was it decided that the roundel should also appear on the fuselages, instead of the flag, and that the naval air service would switch to the same marking as the army. In little-changed form the roundel is still carried today by the aircraft of the British military air arm.