# World war 2 Aircraft tallies



## Der Mensch (Dec 22, 2004)

Hello Everyone,

I am looking for examples of Tallies that were drawn on the side of the aircraft after a kill. I know that the British and the Americans painted bombs for a bombing mission and either a swastika or a balkenkreuz to identify a German kill. Also the Germans painted a line for each kill on the rudder, this was common in the Battle of Britian, and the shape of the ship sunk in case of naval missions. All this was unoffical of course, but does anybody know of others or have some examples?


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## Medvedya (Dec 22, 2004)

I've heard of a Lancaster called 'Uncle Joe' (ED611) from No 462 Sqn which had Joseph Stalin nose art, and red stars forming it's bomb log.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Dec 22, 2004)

here are some


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## cheddar cheese (Dec 22, 2004)

What the hell is going on with that last picture?


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## Nonskimmer (Dec 22, 2004)

I think a bird pooped on 'im!


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## Lightning Guy (Dec 22, 2004)

I know that some of the American aircraft in the ETO used the image of a broom to denote a fighter sweep and a top hat and cane for an escort mission. In the Pacific, at least some units used a rubber duck to mark aircraft destroyed on the ground.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Dec 22, 2004)

wartime humour...............


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## Der Mensch (Dec 22, 2004)

Thanks Everybody


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Dec 22, 2004)

anytime................


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## lesofprimus (Dec 29, 2004)

I have a bunch of em......


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## lesofprimus (Dec 29, 2004)

More.....


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## Nonskimmer (Dec 29, 2004)

Some good shots there, les!


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## cheddar cheese (Dec 29, 2004)

Yup, I like the Pokryshin one at the top.


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## lesofprimus (Dec 29, 2004)

That one happens to be my favorite one so far that I have found CC.....


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## (G/C) Lionel Mandrake (Dec 29, 2004)

> Description: my favourite, i can explain the markings if you wish..........


Please do Lancaster kicks arse...Tucked away some where i have some photo's of the RAf Hendon's Lanc tallies board collection...


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## evangilder (Dec 29, 2004)

A couple of unusual ones;

B-17 "Sentimental Journey" lower markings are movie cameras for movies that it has been in.

C-46 "Tinker Belle" Camels indicate trips over the hump.


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## Nonskimmer (Dec 29, 2004)

By "over the hump" do you mean the Himalaya Mountains?


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## evangilder (Dec 29, 2004)

Yup. Supply missions to the Chinese mainly.


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## Erich (Dec 29, 2004)

Friend Huie Lamb. 2 kills in the 78th fg, one of them a 262.


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## Erich (Dec 29, 2004)

same squadron in the 78th fg, friend Dick Hewitt, two of the kills are not on the canopy, both 262's in sprng of 45


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## Erich (Dec 29, 2004)

Friend Don Bryan's "little one"

352nd fg who was one of the few to intercept and shoot down an Ar 234. what a story !


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## GermansRGeniuses (Dec 29, 2004)

Are those mirrors?



Never seen them on a 'Stang...


Do you know how many Ar-234s went down to any sort of enemy action, as well as how many were built?


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## Erich (Dec 29, 2004)

yes those are mirrors, Dick H also had them installed from time to time and they were also fitted on P-47's as well.

not sure of the total numbers of Ar 234's built but at least 12 of the jets were shot down by the US 8th Air Force. Don Bryan was involved in 4 seperate combats with Ar 234's


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## Erich (Dec 29, 2004)

more mirrors anyone ? Frank Birtciel of the 55th locobusters fg. 1 Me 262 to his credit


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## Erich (Dec 29, 2004)

ok one more for tonight. I have many friends that flew for the 8th AF.

78th fg personell around a colourized pic of a P-51D. nice shot though


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## Erich (Dec 29, 2004)

ho-hum how about the pic !! 8)


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## Erich (Dec 29, 2004)

alright I am headin off to Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

last one now for the eve. Friend Harold Knight of the 355th fg. heck of a guy sittin on his hot rod


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## lesofprimus (Dec 30, 2004)

Great shots Erich....

U wouldnt happen to have a really good shot of Bars Fw-190 tailplane would u???? I have looked for awhile and still no pic......


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## (G/C) Lionel Mandrake (Dec 30, 2004)

GermansRGeniuses said:


> Are those mirrors?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Those aren't just mirrors...Them be Spitfire mirrors my boy....Which reminds me, the mirror on my Spit was stolen back in 43


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## Erich (Dec 30, 2004)

sorry but those are not Spit mirrors. they were used on the P-51B and then remodeled under US specs
J. Petersburs with his 20th fg P-51D. having the engine 'run-up' by ground crew. The pilot was a 262 killer with 3-4 ground kills as well. Super guy !

Erich


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## Erich (Dec 30, 2004)

another shot of the man


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## Erich (Dec 30, 2004)

last shot of Joe in his kit. The "look" of a fighter jock no doubt. I have the pic in my office in a 8x10 format signed of course


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## (G/C) Lionel Mandrake (Dec 30, 2004)

*Erich Said*


> sorry but those are not Spit mirrors. they were used on the P-51B and then remodeled under US specs


Well if you say so...But my take is the mirrors were more for a kudos factor rather then a practical one...And the Americans liked to scrummage around the RAF stores for helmets, oxygen masks, gloves, boots, mae wests, etc, etc, and Spit mirrors too.  
Btw, excellent pictures you posted here, thanks.


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## Erich (Dec 30, 2004)

note that Birtciel's P-51 has 3 mirrors. and yes they came in very handy as it was not a one-way battle in favour of Allied forces all the time

E


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## (G/C) Lionel Mandrake (Dec 30, 2004)

I seen pic's with cockpit internal mirrors as well.
Surely if you see a Messerschmitt in your rear view mirror, it's to late?


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Dec 30, 2004)

that will depend on allot of things...................


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## (G/C) Lionel Mandrake (Dec 30, 2004)

Well, i'm all ears.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Dec 30, 2004)

what type of messerschmitt, how far away it is, it's closing speed, pilot skill to name a few...................


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## (G/C) Lionel Mandrake (Dec 30, 2004)

So let me get this right. Your sitting in your cockpit looking in your mirror while you pluck your eyebrows, when you see a hun in your mirror, how do you decide he's good or not?


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## Erich (Dec 30, 2004)

you'd make a split decision and brake and bank or hoepfully your wingman was just right behind that German a/c.

another friend's a/c; this time with the 339th fg. Steve Ananian, 262 killer


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## lesofprimus (Dec 30, 2004)

Great Pics Erich...


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Dec 31, 2004)

nice pic, and i was refering to your own piloting skills....................


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## Lightning Guy (Jan 1, 2005)

I recently learned something else about aircraft tallies. At least some American units in the SWPA (namely the 475th FG) used the simple red circle on a white square to denote a bomber kill. The raidiating red beams denoted a kill over an enemy fighter.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jan 12, 2005)

I always thought it was just unit preference.


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## Lightning Guy (Jan 13, 2005)

As far as I can tell it was. But I had never seen anything denoting the distinction. I had always assumed the guys with the simple white flag and red circle were too lazy to paint anything else.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jan 13, 2005)

I figured there was some unit regulation. I know that is how it is today. Our unit will not let us paint anything on our aircraft. I had black flames painted down the sides of my Blackhawk's engine cowlings and a "Big Red One" painted on the nose, my buddies aircraft had a big Chicken Hawk painted on the engine cowlings and we had to paint them over with standard army OD Green. We are not even allowd to make tally's denoting how many air assaults our individual aircraft have performed on paint a purple heart for each time our aircraft sustain battle damage. But other units here have Grim Reapers or 4 Leaf Clovers, Shark Teeth, or Skulls painted on there aircraft. Each unit designates the what and how it can be painted on the aircraft. That is what I allways thought governed the way WW2 US aircraft painted there aircraft.


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## cheddar cheese (Jan 13, 2005)

> figured there was some unit regulation. I know that is how it is today. Our unit will not let us paint anything on our aircraft. I had black flames painted down the sides of my Blackhawk's engine cowlings and a "Big Red One" painted on the nose,



This id love to see, do you have any photos of when it was like that?


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jan 13, 2005)

I have a few on my external harddrive I will check them out and see what I can find. The last time my aircraft was like that was when I was deployed to Kosovo and I have thousands of pictures from when I was there but when I find them I will post them, hopefully tonight.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jan 13, 2005)

Here is 2 of the Big Red One that I painted. I could not find any of the flames but I know I have some as soon as I find them I will post them for you. (The ugly camo uniform is the new flight suits that the US Army is making us wear, they suck! 2 piece flight suits suck and the women dont like them as much) Any how here is the first ones. It is not as intricate and detailed a thing as the stuff that you would see on WW2 aircraft. I really suck at artist stuff. The flames though were awesome. They looked so good that I had to paint everything we had like the engine cowlings on my aircraft: the tractor, the hummer, the gator, everything until they made us paint everything over.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jan 13, 2005)

Anyhow I know this is completly off topic but I found this pic while I was searching for the flames pic and I had to post it. This is a perk of being a fly boy! Girls love you. This was the best flight I ever did. The Cincinnati Bengals Cheerleaders came to visit us and I got fly them around. Man it was hard to contain myself, she is so hot. So kids when you grow up what do you want to do now?


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## cheddar cheese (Jan 13, 2005)

Nice 8)


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## Nonskimmer (Jan 13, 2005)

That's it! I'm quiting the Canadian Navy and joining the US Army!  

Great pics, Adler. Nice "1"!


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jan 13, 2005)

So how do you like the Canadian Navy and how long have you been in it? What exactly do you do?


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## Nonskimmer (Jan 13, 2005)

It's not a terrible way to make a living. The perks are slowly being taken away, however, and politics has pretty much taken over how we do things now a days. In essence, they've sucked the fun right out of it! Still, it pays the bills.
I've been in the mob for almost sixteen years so far. I work on radar and fire-control systems, mainly. "They break 'em, we fix 'em!".


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## Erich (Jan 13, 2005)

Eagle :

does the army allow giant skulls on the front of their craft ?


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jan 13, 2005)

Well Nonskimmer that is the same for our army. It is all politics and that is why we cant win this Iraq war. They are more worried about how our uniforms look then getting the job done.

Erich it depends on the unit you are in. This is why I always thought that the way tallies were painted on the US aircraft in WW2 depended on the unit regulations. My unit like I said does not allow anything but the guys who just got here there unit allows them to. I can take a picture and show you if you would like. They have really giant skulls on there noses. My unit sucks they dont let us have anyfun. I put tallies for every insertion or assault that I flew in and they made me remove them along with my flames and big red one saying that it was unprofessional. My ass it is pride in my aircraft. I cant even paint the name of my aircraft on it and they made me remove my name off the bird.


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## Erich (Jan 13, 2005)

most likely no-personalization which is crap in my opinion but that is probably written in the code books.

I would think an old standard like placing mission bars on the tail or right under the cockpit would mean something to your CO

oh well........... by the way there were many differences in the placement of the cross or swastika as kills even with 8th and 9th AF fighter group squadrons. Personal trait ?


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## plan_D (Jan 13, 2005)

The British don't allow nose art, full stop. Except I think on bombers, I saw some Bucs with nose art from the Gulf War...which was mildly confusing but I assume they allow bomber nose art.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jan 13, 2005)

Erich said:


> most likely no-personalization which is crap in my opinion but that is probably written in the code books.
> 
> I would think an old standard like placing mission bars on the tail or right under the cockpit would mean something to your CO
> 
> oh well........... by the way there were many differences in the placement of the cross or swastika as kills even with 8th and 9th AF fighter group squadrons. Personal trait ?



I agree with you on that also. Personalization is good for moral and pride in my opionion but as the saying goes in my unit "Hey thats good for moral, you cant have that!"

I also noted the differences in the ETO US fighters and thought that too was just unit regulation. Do you know if that was just personal trait or was that regulations?


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## Medvedya (Jan 13, 2005)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> I cant even paint the name of my aircraft on it and they made me remove my name off the bird.



You can't even have your name on the side now?


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jan 13, 2005)

Nope they made us take it off. This was just recently and I kind of understand it. They are affraid that if we get shot down CNN will get to the crash site before the army does and they will show video footage of it and then our families and everyone will see it on television with our names painted on the side.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Jan 13, 2005)

well thats fair enough i suppose..........


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jan 13, 2005)

Yeah but it still sux.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Jan 13, 2005)

can you personalise it, fluffy dice or anything like that?? nodding dogs??


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## cheddar cheese (Jan 13, 2005)

Bumper stickers?

"My other 'copter's an Apache"


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## plan_D (Jan 13, 2005)




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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jan 13, 2005)

We joke around about it all the time. We want to put flashing signs in the windows that say where we are going because everywhere we land we have some guy that comes out trying to catch a ride some place. We call ourselves "Johnny Cab" or since our call sign (which we hate and do not want but our CO thinks its the best thing on the planet) is Angry Cat (we wanted G-String) we changed it to Angry C.A.T which stands for Combat Air Taxi. We also joked around about putting a big yellow taxi sign on the top of the aircraft. But yeah when we were allowed to do that stuff we personalized it. A lot of people would put flags and stuff my buddy who is from Peurto Rico had dice on his. It all depends what you wanted to do, but that is all over now.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Jan 13, 2005)

so you can't do that no more??


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## plan_D (Jan 13, 2005)

I'd have my call sign, Rusty Camaro...for porn start purposes.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jan 13, 2005)

plan_D said:


> I'd have my call sign, Rusty Camaro...for porn start purposes.



We did have a female passenger on board a couple of months ago and her vibrator fell out of her ruck sack. It was quite funny.


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## plan_D (Jan 13, 2005)

Christ almighty, I would have mocked her for decades. Surely the vibration of the aircraft must have given her enough...but no....


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## cheddar cheese (Jan 13, 2005)




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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jan 13, 2005)

Oh we did my buddy was running around smacking everyone on the head with it and then even though she was the only female passenger on board he was waving it around asking them all who this belongs too and she turned red and ran off it was great.


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## plan_D (Jan 13, 2005)

I bet that hurt her...

...running off a Blackhawk while it was flying.


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## cheddar cheese (Jan 13, 2005)

When your old and your grandchildren ask all about your army experience, I hope you dont conjure up that story


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## plan_D (Jan 13, 2005)

On the contrary my young virginator, he SHOULD bring up that story. For it is one the funniest military stories...in the last 20 minutes, that I have EVER heard.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Jan 13, 2005)

that's a brilliant story, you should tell your grand kids..........


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jan 13, 2005)

OH I deffinatly will, we are always looking for her on post to see if we can make her blush some more.


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## Erich (Jan 13, 2005)

Eagle on the ETO birds it was group , then passed down to squadron, and if the CO's were stuck on it then there was a general way of placing the victory symbols. Now if a squadron CO is much more liberal in thinking then it was anything goes.....

E ♠


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jan 14, 2005)

I think the crew should be allowed to personalize there aircraft but I think there should be some regulations so the aircraft does not look like a flying piece of modern art.


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## cheddar cheese (Jan 14, 2005)

Me too..it would keep people spirits up...


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jan 14, 2005)

It is good for moral.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Jan 14, 2005)

just small things that make you feel more comfortable being there...........


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jan 15, 2005)

Yeap and that is what they take away.


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## classic (Apr 26, 2014)

I know this thread is like a decade old, but I thought I would revive it instead of starting a new one. Anyway, I recently have noticed a couple of pictures of WIII Allied planes in the Pacific that have both the regular Japanese flag (white with red circle) and Japanese navy flag ("rising sun" where there are red lines coming from the circle and it is left-of-center) "kill" tallies painted next to their cockpits. What could this difference mean? Part of me thought that maybe it was pilots distinguishing between having shot down planes that belonged to either the Japanese Army Air Service or the Imperial Navy, like bombers as opposed to Zeroes or something. Or maybe the Navy flag ones stand for ships that have been destroyed?


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## Aozora (Apr 26, 2014)

classic said:


> I know this thread is like a decade old, but I thought I would revive it instead of starting a new one. Anyway, I recently have noticed a couple of pictures of WIII Allied planes in the Pacific that have both the regular Japanese flag (white with red circle) and Japanese navy flag ("rising sun" where there are red lines coming from the circle and it is left-of-center) "kill" tallies painted next to their cockpits. What could this difference mean? Part of me thought that maybe it was pilots distinguishing between having shot down planes that belonged to either the Japanese Army Air Service or the Imperial Navy, like bombers as opposed to Zeroes or something. Or maybe the Navy flag ones stand for ships that have been destroyed?



AFAIK the different types of flag don't signify anything in particular. For those flags that were painted on it would depend on how artistically inclined the ground-crew members were, or on what stencils might have been available. Many Allied victory markings were decals, so it would depend on what decals were available; more often than not victory markings on USN aircraft seemed to use the IJN flag with the "rays", although there were exceptions, probably due to what was available.

On this F6F there were three different styles that look to have been painted on:







Whereas these were decals (note the slight nick on the top-left victory marking):


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