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Identity and action : the symbolism of the Navy.
The article aims to offer a preliminary summary of the state of research about naval symbolism, whilst going beyond mere description of the insignia of the various units. In practice the ways in which an armed service shows off the units that comprise it does not grow simly from the folklore of tradition. In the navy's case it is intimately linked to the service's view of how it wants to represent itself and what it wants to be most prominent. The regulation during the 20th Century of badges to go on uniforms, to designate specialists, along with the insignia on certificates and for individual units, is proof positive of this. It also illustrates the tensions that can exist between the aspirations of naval personnel, anxious to mark out their individuality, and the absolute need to maintain homogeneity between different units to preserve the coherence of the navy as a whole. From the end of the 19th Century to the present, the policy of naval leaders has had to compromise with practices and claims that are at times at odds with the unitary model to which they aspire for the fleet as a whole. However, because the navy saw its uni-dimensional nature change rapidly after the end of the First World War, it was obliged to recognise the individual specificities of its branches that operated above the waves and below them, i.e. naval aviation and the submarine service. The recent creation of insignia for the surface fleet forces is not a sign of some further fragmentation of the navy, but is indicative of the pursuit of the goal of unifying the entire service by means of a making a visible acknowledgement of the special competences of every branch.