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Symbol meaning - Star in a circle

126K views 25 replies 13 participants last post by  RJames55 
#1 ·
Hi
Can anybody tell me what the is meaning of the attached symbol?
I Understand that is military related but what is the meaning? what is the relationship of this symbol with the Willys?


 
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#4 · (Edited)
Okay, to begin with, that's what's referred to as an "Invasion Star" and here's the long and short of it.

All the military vehicles rolled off the assembly line with their military markings (i.e. stars, ID numbers, etc). Prior to WWII, the US sent lots of military equipment overseas as part of the "Lend/Lease Program" and all of the military vehicles has the stars on them. When it came time for the US to actively enter the war, they realized they needed a way to identify their vehicles from the ones that were already there and might have fallen into enemy's hands. The simplest method was to just paint a circle around the star. The painting was done in the field with stencils. The stencil marks were supposed to be painted out for a continuous circle but more often than not, it was just left.
On a side note, not sure how accurate you care to be but pretty much 90% of the sets of WWII invasion stars you will find on the internet are not technically correct. Most of the stars had the circle but it was broken by the star (as in your sample), this wouldn't have happened on the original markings.
I had the incorrect ones on my Jeep for a while until I did more research and decided to correct them.

Incorrect star:



Correct star:

 
#12 ·
:Thanx:

Great story!! And The Sarge looks GREAT!!
Thanks :thumb:

I've actually changed it up a bit. We have over 300 days a year of sunshine down here and I run "naked" almost all of them. I decided to go more like the original Jeeps and took the stars off the doors and placed small ones at the rear (I have a gas filler door so was able to do the stars on both sides).
 

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#14 ·
Wow yes it does look good! I like the stars on the green jeeps, especially.

I must be dumb or really lost, I can't find the star on Military Stencils. I found one on Ebay but I doubt the quality of the material. I am checking in the Decal category, not in the masks.

Sorry for the really seemingly simple question..
 
#16 ·
Wow yes it does look good! I like the stars on the green jeeps, especially.

I must be dumb or really lost, I can't find the star on Military Stencils. I found one on Ebay but I doubt the quality of the material. I am checking in the Decal category, not in the masks.

Sorry for the really seemingly simple question..
Not a dumb question at all, I should have mentioned that. On their decal star page (Decal Stars) they only show the standard stars. If you want the Invasion Stars you just need to put that in the comments section of the order form.

Interesting. I guess my stars are incorrect then. It was what the decal guy I went to had in his computer and I didn't know. I seem to remember reading something about the circle being added because from the air the plain star was sometimes confused for a swastika. But that may not be true.
Don't worry, when I first put the stars on my JK those were the ones I had. It wasn't until I started doing my research for my Willys MB restoration that I found out the difference.
 
#15 ·
Interesting. I guess my stars are incorrect then. It was what the decal guy I went to had in his computer and I didn't know. I seem to remember reading something about the circle being added because from the air the plain star was sometimes confused for a swastika. But that may not be true.



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