The flag for the Commander of a Division
was introduced in January 1937. Soon thereafter, on 19 December 1937, the flags
for several main naval units were ceremoniously handed out (these would be
called "colours" in English). I report a summary from
Ivanov (1998), pp. 146-147:
These were given by King Boris III himself to the Naval Academy, Maritime
Police Service and Danube Police Service. (I believe that these are military
police services rather then anything else, but it is hard to tell for me.) In
the description of the ceremony, it is mentioned that the minister of the army,
Major General Lukov, was granted 17-gun salutes, in comparison to the Commander of a Division,
who was due 13. The flag of the Naval Academy (that was in Sozopol) is now
preserved in the National Military History Museum (Natsionalni
voennoistoricheski muzei, NVIM, presumably in Sofia). It is neither pictured nor
described further in
Ivanov (1998).
With the end of the World War II and the change of the political system on 9
September 1944, the old flags (entire sets of colours, ensigns, jacks, pennants,
etc.) became obsolete. It seems that the commanders had considerable autonomy in
this respect and that they chose designs at their whim. Although it may
have seemed a long time, it was indeed in the navy that the new flags were
established (as opposed to army and air force flags that followed later). It was on
30 May 1955 that the commander-in-chief of the navy issued an order
(numbered No. I-M-131) establishing the ensign, jack, pennants and personal
flags in the navy with validity on 1 July 1949.
Ivanov (1998) therefore is silent on the
flags used in the period 1944-1949. It seems they were not uniform and they were
not standardised in any way. Probably one of the designs that might have been in
use might be one that I reported from a Croatian atlas issued in 1955 (see
above), and probably other variations have been used. One report of the 1949
ensign in use in the period 1944-1949 seems to be wrong -- the ensign with the
red star below the lion was not adopted until 1949 and used until 1955. However,
surely, there may have been examples of this ensign being used before its
official establishment in 1949 (after all, the official establishment might have
been only the official recognition of a predominant or preferred unofficial
practice) Željko Heimer, 16 January 2004
The Bulgarian OF flag was used from 1944, when Russians occupied/liberated
the country, until 1947, although I found it in an atlas of 1955. The letters OF
stood for Otechestven front (Homeland Front) -- the communist-led
organisation that led the anti-Nazi struggle. As far as I know, the front was not
organised until 1944. Željko Heimer, 24 April 1996
A Bulgarian tricolor with black Cyrillic capitals "ОФ" centered on the green
stripe, standing for Отечествен фронт. António Martins-Tuválkin,
30 September 2017
![[Bulgarian flag, 1944]](../images/b/bg_1944.gif)
image
by Željko Heimer