Question about Flags on Planes

[johnross2007]

I know that if an American plane has a little nazi or jap flag on it that means it shot one down. But a few days ago I noticed something very unusual on a P-51(i think) on the History Channel. I happened to look at the nice array of flags on the plane shown and I noticed that, among the many Nazi flags and one Jap flag, there was also an American flag. This doesn't make sense to me, since that would mean this American plane shot down another American plane.

[Rino]

Victory flags differ from country to country, for example soviets
used red stars for victories.  Also many pilots used aircraft
sihouettes to mark specific victories..ie the B-29s on the sides of
KI-61s in Japan.

     There was an instance where an american aircraft shot out
the engines of a C-47 to prevent it from accidentally landing on
a japanese held island.  That could have been the bird you saw
on tv.  It's not an official marking, but then none of the kill markers
were really "official".

[johnross2007]

talk about drastic measures. shooting out an engine..... wow. Still, what are the chances that they just so happened to show that one? And that wouldn't really be a kill either. Of course hopefully that flag would not represent a kill lol.

[faint]

Originally posted by johnross2007
among the many Nazi flags

w00t pwnt^

[Kurt]

Well, some people consider it T.V. fiction but one of the 'Blacksheep' had accidentally downed four friendlies... Thankfully none resulted in deaths..  They joked that he was a Japanese ace and put american kills on his plane.

Perhaps the plane you saw had a non-fatal friendly fire and a similar joke was in play?

[Jackal1]

Killshooter wasn`t enabled during WWII.

[Tails]

Originally posted by johnross2007
I know that if an American plane has a little nazi or jap flag on it that means it shot one down. But a few days ago I noticed something very unusual on a P-51(i think) on the History Channel. I happened to look at the nice array of flags on the plane shown and I noticed that, among the many Nazi flags and one Jap flag, there was also an American flag. This doesn't make sense to me, since that would mean this American plane shot down another American plane.

I've also heard of a P-61 (different animal, I know) that was on SAR duty shooting down a B-29 after the crew had bailed out. It was a ghost ship then, and heading in the general direction of Japan.

Maybe, again, something similar?

[BTW]

I misread this subject heading. I thought it was about homeland security - ill leave it at that.