Uncle's patch from USAAF from WWII

S

sandcrab

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28 Aug 2024

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• 28 Aug 2024

• #1

Hello--New --I have my uncle's patch from USAAF from WWII.

Can anyone know what it might say? I think it might be Chinese.

 

thomas

Unswerving cyclist

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14 Mar 2002

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• 28 Aug 2024

• #2

Welcome to the forum! This seems to be one of the "blood chits" used by US aviators in China. It should be Chinese; the seal-like script looks curious. I hope our experts can shed more light on this particular patch.

 

mdchachi

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6 Mar 2003

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• 28 Aug 2024

• #3

It looks like gibberish to me. I'll be surprised if it's spelling out anything understandable. It looks like somebody was looking at seals or some such to make similar characters as a lark. If the goal is to convey something like "I come in peace and am fighting our mutual enemy" then it would be written in accessible, normal characters like those shown on the Wikipedia page.

 

mdchachi

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• 28 Aug 2024

• #4

It looks like they were trying to copy something like this. Basically copying characters without knowing anything about the language they were copying. But even this one looks suspect (a copy made by somebody who doesn't know Chinese).

 

Last edited: 28 Aug 2024

Mikawa Ossan

いかんわ！

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• 28 Aug 2024

• #5

It's definitely supposed to be Chinese. I agree with @mdchachi that it was most likely written by someone who didn't know Chinese characters and therefore just copied the original as best as they could.