Last modified: 2023-06-03 by zachary harden
Keywords: myanmar | burma | peacock | star: white | stars: 6 | federalist party of burma |
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Based on a source at http://www.myanmars.net/myanmar/admin.htm
The Blue Ensign, Burmese badge on the fly (a golden disk, a peacock in proper colours superimposed). Also used 1945 - 1948.In the diarchy parliament of February 1939, the Governor of Burma
officialised this ensign just like other British dominion states. The insignia
of the Myanmars, the dancing peacock on that flag was taken from King Mindon's
1-kyat silver coin.
Dov Gutterman, 30 July 2000 and Blas Delgado Ortiz, 14 September 2000
The peacock was within a circle whose diameter is
4/9ths of the width of the flag. To put it another way; the diameter of the
circle is 45% of the width of the flag. The peacock was in natural colours;
mainly royal blue, yellowish-green and dark gold. As far as I remember the space
between the edge of the peacock and the edge of the circle should be dark gold.
David Prothero, 17 January 2000
The Burmese badge in Flaggenbuch [neu92] was
"mostly dark blue with some gold". After looking carefully at the detailed image
in Flaggenbuch, this is how the Burma badge appears there: the peacock is
basically (light) turquoise green, all the edges, shades etc. are in royal blue,
the feathers which hang from the bottom of its neck are pink with blue dots and
the beautiful, oval-shaped "medallions" at the end of each feather are gold. The
peacock stands on a very thin compartment in the same light turquoise green
colour, the compartment reaching the edges of the circle. The areas between the
peacock and the edges of the circle are all gold.
By the way, when the badge is used on the Governor's flag, the wreath is not the
standard one, but one of olive-like branches, with ribbon but no fruits, all
coloured in that same light turquoise green. I would say that the light
turquoise green is something like RGB 0-255-204.
Santiago Dotor, 19 January 2000
from the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London
Very beautiful images here. They look almost exactly to what I recall of the
images in Flaggenbuch. The disc is supposed to be gold, so possibly the colour
shown by the "gold" ink should rather be shown as a dark yellow on the images.
Santiago Dotor, 29 April 2002
submitted by Colin Cleveland, 19 October 2018
I have a flag, with peacock centre, dated 1940, multiple panels sewn together, framed, with a bag with 2 notes, Japanese occupation currency, and an OHMS brown paper tag, also a plastic label saying "The last British flag flown in Burma removed by HMS Birmingham". Colin Cleveland, 19 October 2018
image by Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 24 February 2019
I've recoloured the dark gold in Blas's image on
Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 24 February 2019
The provisional pro-Japan government adopted the flag of the Synyethe - Wunthann party as the unofficial national flag (yellow, a green stripe atop, charged with a red roundel).
Pier Paolo Lugli, 30 March 1998
In Dirk's collection a flag is shown green over yellow with a central red
circle. This is perhaps a version of the flag of the Poor Men's Party, the
political movement that opposed the puppet republic. The flag is described as
green over yellow with a rising sun in the upper stripe. The rising sun is
similar to the rising sun on the national arms; this is only half the sun with
several narrow and short rays.
Jaume Ollé, 23 April 1997
During Japanese occupation, this flag was used. The party Sinyetha-Wunthanu was
a merging of the Sinyetha party, ruled by Ba Maw, president of the puppet
government, and the Society of the Thakins, ruled by Aung San, appointed chief
of the 'national' Burmese army. The flag adopted in 1943, remains controversial.
Ivan Sache, 28 January 2001
The Japanese created a puppet state in Burma on 1 August 1943. The flag is
described in several forms, but probably was horizontally dark yellow, green and
red, with a red circle containing the Burmese peacock in natural colours.
Jaume Ollé, 23 April 1997
A triband, yellow green red from top to bottom, a yellow stylised peacock on a white disk overall. This was after the independentist party flag, its colours coming from the radical-national party flag of Doubama, 1930 - 1938 and attested in a flag flown from the liberation army, 1941. Does anybody have a good picture of this flag? I know it appeared on stamps, too.
Pier Paolo Lugli, 30 March 1998
From 1942-1948, the yellow-green-red peacock flag was modified slightly, the only difference being in
the feathers of the peacock, which were redrawn in geometrical diamond-shape
patterns.
Dov Gutterman, 30 July 2000
image by Jaume Olle based on a Japanese newspaper image
In 2001 I found a Japanese newspaper that shows the Independent State of
Burma national flag, adopted on Aug 1st 1943 and abolished on Aug 1st 1945. The
flag is yellow-green-red with a peacock on a white disc. The yellow is actually
a marigold colour like the Manchukou flag and sometimes may look orange.
At that time yellow stands for Buddhist, green for agriculture and red for
bravery which was reported in the Japanese paper in 1943.
Nozomi Kariyasu, 20 January 2007
Stamps depicting the flag of the puppet State of Burma (1943-1945) can be
seen at
http://www.tibetanpost.com/images/items/B/burj0035.jpg. Unfortunately, the
stamps are monochrome, so the right colours are not shown on them. However, the
design is clear - a horizontal triband with the peacock in the center.
Valentin Poposki, 20 January 2007
Scans of WWII-era Japanese propaganda pamphlets are available at
http://www.2bangkok.com/wwiipropaganda.shtml. The then-flag of Myanmar is
shown as well.
Eugene Ipavec, 20 January 2007
The anti-Japan movement fought under a red flag bearing a white star.
The British blue ensign with peacock badge was also used in
this period. Some sources indicate this star was on the upper hoist, not centred [as previously depicted here - Ed.]. This
arrangement later became the basis for the modern national flag.
Pier Paolo Lugli, 30 March 1998
In Smith (1975c) and Smith (1982), in the description of the national flag history there is mentioned the flag of the Anti-Fascist Resistance Movement: red with white star in upper hoist. This is, of course, just an attempt to reconstruct it, without knowing where exactly and how big star should be. Also, I would allow Smith for somewhat loose wording in this context and possibly something was omitted. Can anyone confirm that these reconstructions are any good?
As Smith
describes, this flag is basis for the later national flag (added blue canton and
5 smaller stars), and indirectly for the current national flag as well. I guess
that this flag is also basis for the FBC/NLD flags.
Željko Heimer, 2 July 2002
According to pg 23 and 24 of the
PDF "THE NEW BURMA IN NEW WORLD"), the flag of this movement
(Anti-Fascist Peoples' Freedom League) described the flag as a red
banner with a white star in the canton. As for why this pattern was
chosen, the rationale was put below the description: "Red symbolizes (
1 ) bravery (2) the masses ( 3 ) unification of all the peoples
of the world. Red also draws attention easily. The star symbolizes the
guiding star for the people to attain freedom and progress." The flag
was published in 1944 in a manifesto issued as a cry to drive the
Japanese out of Burma and to achieve Burmese independence.
Zachary Harden, 15 November 2018
There is also an open issue: in a table published on the German magazine Signal (the last, special number for 1943, the Italian version) Burma's flag is red with, presumably, a peacock on it. This sounds similar to the 1941 - 1942 flag, but with a different background colour: does anybody have more information?
Burma was administratively part of the Indian Empire, but it seems that it was the undefaced Union Flag that was used until sometime in 1939. Burma was separated from Indian Empire 1st April 1937, but the Union Flag and Blue Ensign defaced with the peacock design was not approved until 9th February 1939.
From a newspaper cutting of this date. "King has approved national flag for Burma. Hitherto it has been the Union Flag. On the Blue Ensign; a peacock in natural colours on a circle with gold background. Governor's is the same on a Union Flag with garland. Date of use to be notified after international recognition."
The peacock design was taken from the silver coinage of King Mindon 1852.
David Prothero, 31 March 1998
The Burmese pro-British resistance against Japan in 1942-1945 used a red flag
with the old British badge (in 1945 it began to use the red flag with a white
star in the canton).
Jaume Ollé,
24 January 2000
This flag is also used by the Federalist Party of
Burma at
http://federalistpartyburma.org/aboutus.aspx, which also explains the
political goals of the party:
"We are a political party of people who believe in democracy and federalism, and
we aim to build a society (in Burma) in which every people has equal rights and
can enjoy human rights to the fullest extent, and people of different ethnic
origins have autonomy to manage their own domestic affairs by themselves in
their ethnic regions, and the rights of the people are protected by the law, and
the laws are made by people's elected legislature (states and federal) in
accordance with a democratic federal constitution."
The flag used on the website is taken from FOTW and it is uncertain if the party
members adopted this flag after Jaume's drawing or if they consider themselves
as part of the Resistance against current regime, so they use the same flag as
their ancestors from the period before and during WWII.
Valentin Poposki, 27 April 2008