From: bolton8@juno.com
Date: Sat May 20 2006 - 07:02:20 PDT
Prior to the U.S. entering the war British armor were marked with the
tricolour roundel. Red center, white circle, surrounded by blue circle.
The French roundel was the reverse. Blue center, white circle,
surrounded by red circle. The Americans had the large white star.
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 by over enthusiast American pilots. The
Yank's didn't take 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 a Canadian Armor Regiment that came up with the idea
of putting the Yank white star inside the British roundel. This was
first used in North Africa unofficially by this one Canadian unit. (My
misplaced
article gives the exact unit that started this concept.)
The practice spread through other Canadian Regiment's in North Africa and
was first used
British units during the invasion of Sicily (10 July 1943). The concept
proved so
successful that before the invasion of Italy (3 September 1943) it was
standardized
throughout all of the Allied Forces.
LANCE MVPA 22125
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