During WWII, the War department, and specifically the Departments of the Army and Navy, instituted an award for outstanding performance of a war production facility. The was called the E award, E for Excellence. During the course of the war over 4000 companies won the award. For each company that won the award, each war worker received this very nice sterling pin
And the company itself was awarded this flag that it could fly demonstrating to the world at large that they were an outstanding war production facility.
This flag has 4 stars. For those companies that qualified for an E award multiple times, for each award after the first they would receive a star on their flag. So this flag denotes that the company won the E award 5 times.
According to the War department, at the end of the program 4283 plants received the award, and out of those 820 received 4 stars, with only 8 receiving 6 stars. Each company was allowed to continue to fly the flag and employees could wear the pin even after the program ended. So in theory, any companies still around today could fly the flag. I wonder if any do?
