I am preparing to start my Tasca Firefly and have a question about aerial recgonition. What did the British use for this? I have an ospery book that has a built model of a Firefly with the top of the turret painted yellow. Is this correct? I have never seen this on another Firefly, much less any other tank. Thanks for the help!

The recognition panels varied depending on the mission. The panels varied from Pink, Orange, yellow, even Green. They mixed them up so the Germans couldn't use the same system to aviod roving bands of P47s, P51s, Spits, etc...
I beleive this system went into effect for OVerlord then continued up until the wars end ( and still used today)

Chris

Hi Chris: to clarify things, the panel colors were not changed per mission but daily for security purposes. The flags came in a pack of three: they were Cerise (pink), Orange and Yellow. The underside of each was white.

Combinations of single and double flags were used: e.g. white and yellow, orange and pink, white only, etc.

To answer the original question they usually had a circled White Allied Star on the turret roof. There is conjecture that some vehicles of 13/18th Hussars or possibly the whole of 27 or 8 AB had the whole roof painted white at some stage. The picture often given to support this (twelth knight of 13/18th) is unconclusive. I personally believe this is just a circled Allied Star that has gone over the edge in one place. I have never seen any reference to it or Yellow roofs in Books on Brit subjects or memoirs.
The star was also carried on the Engine deck but quickly became covered in stowage. The panels every mentions were used in there place but not universally. In Normandy there seems to have been a thing about Yellow smoke to mark friendlies amongst C'wealth formations. It is mentioned in quite a few books about the Falaise campaign. It and other means (stars and panels), like today, were not always successful in identifying the unit as a friendly to the Air Support.
CHeers
Al

Thanks for the info guys!!!!