Shermy: During the attack? Why were they not flying before?
A flag was flying before. It would get shot down and the crew would put up a larger one.
I question if jet fighter pilots would notice any flags.
As someone with thousands of hours in Navy patrol aircraft, let me tell you how you identify a ship at sea. You look at size, shape, configuration (antennas, stacks, radars, masts, guns), speed, name or hull number and flags. If you still can't figure it out you can call them on the radio. If the Israeli pilots and torpedo boat captains had managed just to correctly accomplish just one of those, no Americans would have died that day.
Our allies...?
Go figure...?