From: bolton8@juno.com
Date: Tue Jun 01 2004 - 07:03:53 PDT
I think the Invasion star was used in the invasion of Italy as well,
that would explain it. NIGE
I read a short article on this sometime ago. Unfortunately I cannot
find the article at the moment, so it will be from memory.
Towards the end of the North African Campaign when the U.S. Air Corps
had taken over the skies there was a serious problem with British and
Canadian armor being shot up by over enthusiast American pilots. The
American's didn't take the time to correctly identify their target, they
went by the rule of thumb: "Either it's got a white star or it doesn't".
It was one of the Canadian Armor Regiment's that came up with the idea
of putting the Yank white star inside the British roundel. This was
first used in North Africa by this one Canadian unit. (My missing
article gives the exact unit which started this.)
The practice spread through other Canadian Regiment's and was first used
during the invasion of Sicily (10 July 1943). The concept proved so
successful that before the invasion of Italy it was standardized
throughout the Allied Forces.
LANCE
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