Today’s 1943 poster from the artist ‘Percival’, as well as making editors twitch with some unconventional punctuation, picks up on a challenging visual theme – the question of recognition. Anyone operating aircraft with the Royal Navy in World War Two will be familiar with their ‘shoot first and ask after’ approach.

The aircraft is one of “their’s”, a Junkers Ju 86 – not really a significant anti-shipping type by the war, though they did serve.

James Kightly, Vintage Aero Writer.

From the HMSO book ‘Identification Friend or Foe’, from the Fleet Air Arm Museum Collection.