What is the meaning of the broken circle around the stars on military vehicles used in operation overlord in World War 2?

Answer 1

In 1944 in England where thousands of military vehicles were being staged for the D Day invasion of France the US Army was directed to paint the broken circle around the national stars located on these vehicles already. It is the reason for this directive that we seek information. Answer: According to my research, there was an order requiring all US Military vehicles to have a national Star insignia painted on them. However, there were many variations of this. Some had no circle, some had a full circle and some had a broken circle. The size also varied. There were vehicles in Italy that also had the star with circle markings. So, I don't think it was unique to the Normandy invasion. One veteran wrote a biography entitled "And There Shall Be Wars". He said that they "stole" a jeep from the Air Force that had a star with a circle. Since this marking was unique to the Air Force units, they re-painted the markings to remove the star. (This is his opinion and may not be accurate.) Army regulation AR850-5 provided the guidance for the use of markings on military vehicles during WWII. It left the use of the national star decision up to the theater commander. There are no broken circles arounf the stars illustrated in that regulation. There is the possibility that Eisenhauer having noticed the German Army's propensity to use decption with their equipment appearance decided at the last minute to add the broken circle to our national white star realizing the Germans would not have time to add it to their vehicles meant to fool us.