Posted on 05/06/2008 11:01:24 AM PDT by brytlea
I hope this is ok to post here. I am trying to find some information for my husband on something we got when his father passed away a couple of years ago. It is clearly a blood chit from pictures I've seen online, but it doesn't really look just like the ones I can find online.
It has only an American flag on it, with characters (beats me if they are Chinese or Korean, he flew over both during his career as a marine pilot). I would love to be able to translate it, as we plan to frame it and give it to our son as a Christmas gift.
Is anyone familiar with these? BTW it has his name in English, and then in characters underneath. The photos I've found online don't have names on them. There are actually 2 of them, one is on silk, the other on leather.
Thank you for any help!
Do you have some images?
Blood chits were exactly that. They were issued to flyers in the hopes that, if they were downed behind enemy lines, the flyer could find someone sympathetic to him and give the person a blood chit. The chit was usually good for currency but only good if the airman was returned alive to U.S. or friendly forces.
I have an image my husband scanned, but it’s not a picture, it’s pdf (no idea why he saved it like that). I will see if I can get a picture of the other one (they are just the same, only different material).
susie
What hand reciept?
You can try this program. There is a free trial.
http://www.pdf-to-jpg.com/
That was satire. When the US Miltiary gives something to a soldier/airman that they want back (like a rifle, tank, tent, etc.) they make you sign a hand receipt for it to prove you received it. Stuff they don't back (food, ammo, clothing) they just give you.
When I outprocessed from the USAF, they took back all of my flight gear including the Nomex underwear I wore under my flight suit. I asked if they were going to reissue it to someone else. The reply was, “No, we destroy it with scissors. But we have to account for it.” Like I was going to sell my used fire-proof undies to the Chinese?
Oh.
No, but they didn't want you to have an unfair advantage on Free Republic.
www.armyairforces.com might be able to help you if the person was in the air corp.
Most of my stuff was worn enough that it couldn’t be reissued. But USAF regs required it be accounted for before disposal. I did get to keep my boots, though. They rotted finally.
- Open the pdf.
- Push the “print screen” key on your key board. (Usually in the upper right hand corner.)
- Open MSPaint
- Under Edit, select Paste. Screen image will appear.
- Push the “Esc” key (usually in the upper left hand corner)to exit edit mode and lock the image into the frame.
- Under File, select “save as.”
- When the Save As dialogue box opens, give the file a name and save it as either a .jpeg or .gif file.
- You now have an image you can post to Free Republic.
You didn’t mention Vietnam but the usmcpress.com mentions the American flag being part of the “new” Chits during the Vietnam era:
During the war in Vietnam the fighter, attack, and helicopter crews carried new blood chits. These chits displayed the American flag, plus an appeal in 14 languages: English, Burmese, Thai, Old Chinese, New Chinese, Laotian, Cambodian, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Visayan, Malayan, French, Indonesian, and Dutch. The wording in each language was the same:
I think he got out before VN.
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