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What is the significance of the VE label in an oval on some 78 record labels?

Are these wartime non-shellac disks for distribution among the military?

It means they are electrically recorded. You'll find this on late "bat wing" labels as well as scroll labels.

Electrically recorded Columbia discs of the period also bore a marking. In this case, it was a "W" indicating Western Electric --

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=40775
Also: https://www.stokowski.org/Licensing_Wes ... lumbia.htm
And: viewtopic.php?t=4341

As noted, for Victor records, the VE in the oval stamping was later changed to a VE in a "diamond" shaped mark, indicating that a modified recording process was used.

OrthoFan

The wartime discs made for the military's entertainment are marked on the labels very brightly as V-Discs, and are hard to mistake for a standard Victor 78. I used to wonder why some of the records had that oval VE stamping, but now I look for them--the batwing VE's have a very nice sound to them, and it adds visual interest to the records too.

--Charles

More specifically, it means electrically recorded with the system licensed (at great expense) from Western Electric. The license terms required a royalty payment for each record sold. On later records you'll see the VE in a diamond. If I understand correctly, those were electric recordings but made with a different (home grown?) system that didn't trigger the Western Electric license. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong about that.

Thank you to everyone.

Lots of info.