Hey guys. A quick question for all you experts!

I was just watchin' the old John Wayne film, "Operation Pacific" and a guy was painting Japanese flags on the mast of their sub - of course, one for each kill the sub had made.

What I'm wondering though is: why did some of the flags have the rays of the sun, while others were simple "meatballs"?

I noticed something similar recently on fighter planes in the ETO. Some flags were what we'd consider a "regular" Nazi flags, but others had the swastika in the URH corner and a large cross across the flag's main field - or, something like that!

Any info you can share regarding these particulars will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!  

Good question.
I too would like to know.

on the sub, likely a rising sun flag meant a warship, meatball flag a merchant ship,

Flag of Japan

Nailed it.

I don´t know about the Med Theater, maybe crossed was Italian?

Or Aircraft destroyed on the ground?

A Pic would be helpful.

Hermann

I believe that is (or was) the German Naval Flag. Could indicate sinking damaging a ship.

This.  However, it wasn't painted on the mast but on a flag.  Subs would arrive with a broom attached to the mast, signifying that they had swept the ocean clean and a flag showing how many warships and merchantmen they sank.  For a VERY GOOD read by a WW II skipper, get Eugene Fluckey's Thunder Below!  Fluckey earned four Navy Crosses and the Medal of Honor.  His proudest achievement was that he never lost a man.  His last patrol was perhaps the most difficult as most things afloat with the Japanese flag was sunk.  He tried to sink a trawler with his 20 mm AA guns.  No luck.  He then tried rifle grenades.  No luck.  Lacking explosives, he consulted with his chief who told him the sub, the USS Barb, could ram it without harm to herself.  Ram it he did and down went the trawler.  Fluckey even sent some men ashore who planted a bomb on the train tracks.  They waited until a choo-choo came by and went ka-boom!   Another innovation was the mounting of rocket racks on the deck of the Barb.  He launched rockets against coastal towns in Japan.  

There are numerous photos of the flags that his crew fabricated showing their tally at the completion of their sortie/cruise.

Correct

That was SOP?

This WAS a movie, granted. But, they were painting flags on the . . . oops! I meant conning tower! Shit!

Sorry for any confusion. Yeah. They were painting flags on the conning tower an that's when I noticed the differing styles of flags.

I thought the broom meant they had scored a "clean sweep", meaning they were successful in every engagement against an enemy ship.  Failure to score a kill in an engagement took away the clean sweep.

^THis