Explaination of markings on the USS Ray Battle Flag
by ST1(SS) John Jones

The color RAY design on the old SS-271 Battle Flag was designed, drawn and signed by Walt Disney. You may remember that Disney was but a fledgling cartoonist in those days, and made money during the war on projects like this. I had the original drawing signed by Disney with the ship's historical records, but it was taken by Charlie Tuna before his Change of Command. The original SS-271 Battle Flag now hangs among other submarine flags of honor at the Submarine Museum in Groton. Remember what the symbols stood for?

Green Guy, parachute - USA - number of Army Air Corps pilots rescued (10)

Blue Guy, parachute - USN - number of Naval Aviators rescued (13)

DB insignia with stars - number of battle stars for war patrols (8)

Meatball flag w/ stripes - # of Capital Ships sunk

Meatball flag w/ stripes, white meatball - # of Capital Ships damaged

Square flag w/ meatball - # of support vessels sunk

Square flag w/ white meatball - # of support vessels damaged

Triangle flags - # of small vessels sunk

I forget what the other 3 flags were, but I think they were Japanese merchant marine.

We had a copy of the flag made and hung it just outside the CO's stateroom on board. The COB at time, (RMCM John O' Connor or TMCM Skip Moyer) thought of the plan after I had shown a Polaroid of the flag and the old SS-271 crew patch to him, and we managed to get some good 11x14's made of the flag (we even had a bunch of copies made and sold them in the ship's store - I may still have one somewhere).

JOHN R. V. JONES
STS1(SS)
USS RAY