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The Tradition of Naval Christmas Cards
by John MacFarlane 2012
This Christmas card of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve from the First World War sports a generic design and a brightly coloured red ribbon. It was purchased by personnel to facilitate the sending of Christmas messages home to family and friends. The sending of Christmas cards to express seasonal greetings is a relatively new tradition but naval personnel have been sending these cards for more than 100 years. Many ships of the Royal Navy and commonwealth navies produced custom designed cards to reflect their ship's identity.
Lieutenant Frederick R. MacFarlane was a tugboat skipper from Vancouver Island who joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve with several other British Columbia tugboat skippers. He commanded a motor launch of the Dover Patrol based at HMS Hermione. A white Christmas also meant cold living conditions in these little warships nested together alongside. They were frequently in action against submarines and risked sinking in minefields.
The Christmas card produced by HMS Hermione appears rather austere by modern standards, and not very ‘Christmasy’. HMS Hermione was an eight gun twin-screw cruiser launched at Devonport in 1893. At the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, she became a guard ship at Southampton UK, later becoming the HQ Ship for small fast motor launches and coastal motor boats from December 1916 until December 1919.
Fred MacFarlane had his cards customized with his name. It isn’t clear whether the censor regulations prevented hand written messages but this one was not personalized.
This Christmas card is a modern one used in the RCN destroyer HMCS Chaudiere. Modern warships of the Royal Canadian Navy continued the tradition and produced Christmas cards unique to their ship which could be purchased through the ship’s canteen. The ship’ badge and the ribbon in the heraldic colours of the ship decorated the outside. Inside was usually a photograph of the ship and a cheerful Christmas greeting wishing a Very Merry Christmas.
To quote from this article please cite:
MacFarlane, John M. (2013) The Tradition of Naval Christmas Cards. Nauticapedia.ca 2013. http://nauticapedia.ca/Articles/Xmas_Card.php
Site News: December 21, 2024
The vessel database has been updated and is now holding 94,824 vessel histories (with 16,274 images and 13,929 records of ship wrecks and marine disasters).
Vessel records are currently being reviewed and updated with more than 45,000 processed so far this year (2024).
The mariner and naval biography database has also been updated and now contains 58,599 entries (with 3996 images).
Thanks to Ray Warren who is beginning a long process of filling gaps in the photo record of vessel histories in the database. Ray has been documenting the ships of Vancouver Harbour for more than 60 years.
Thanks to contributor Mike Rydqvist McCammon for the hundreds of photos he has contributed to illustrate British Columbia’s floating heritage.
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