Never seen the Tech patch before.

[chcole1]

This came in a junk lot. It was buried in the bottom of the lot so didn't even know I was bidding on it till it arrived. I have never seen one like it before. Can someone tell me what the rank is? Was it official and from what time period?

 

Chris

[JCFalkenbergIII]

This came in a junk lot. It was buried in the bottom of the lot so didn't even know I was bidding on it till it arrived. I have never seen one like it before. Can someone tell me what the rank is? Was it official and from what time period?

 

Chris

 

You got me Chris. Looks like it was cut from a Technician Third Grade T/3 Chevron obviously. Robert

[ge999]

With the top 2 chevrons I wonder if it was someone that got busted down in rank in the field back down to a private. Not having a quartermaster nearby maybe the officer just cut the top 2 off with his knife or bayonet to make this man an example of doing something extremely stupid.

[chcole1]

What year did they switch the design? Should note the lot also had the later Specialist patch too.

[kyhistorian01]

My guess is its the bottom half of a Tech third grade / Staff Sgt that was discarded when somebody made corporal and didn't have the proper rank insignia available / in stock. I doubt if anyone would have gotten away with wearing it like that.

 

Robert

[ge999]

"On 8 January 1942, the rank of Technician was introduced to replace the Private / Specialist rank, which was discontinued by 30 June 1942. This gave technical specialists more authority by grading them as non-commissioned officers rather than senior enlisted personnel. They were parallel to pay grades of the time, going in seniority from Technician Fifth Grade (Grade Five), Technician Fourth Grade (Fourth Grade), and Technician Third Grade (Third Grade). A technician was paid according to his grade, was outranked by the corresponding non-commissioned officer grade but was senior to the next lowest pay grade, and had no direct supervisory authority outside of his specialty. To reduce the confusion this caused in the field, an embroidered “T” insignia was authorized for wear under the chevrons on 4 September 1942. The rank was finally discontinued on 1 August 1948." -- Basic Wikipedia Note

 

T-5 was the lowest grade, a Corporal with the large T under the two stripes, to my knowledge there was no T-6 which'd look like a pfc with the T in the middle. My grandfather was a T-4 in the Tank Destroyers as a driver; with his special technical skill being repair. Prior to the war he'd owned his own trucking company and used to service all the trucks himself; to him disassembling a tank engine to replace the crank or put in a full new set of bearings was something he could do in his sleep. In all his picture books starting from his graduation from boot camp to going overseas, and photo's from him overseas all the photos either have no chevrons or the T-5 chevrons, never anything like the one that's show above.

[Garth Thompson]

It is the bottom part of a S/Sgt T-3 chevron.

[atb]

With the top 2 chevrons I wonder if it was someone that got busted down in rank in the field back down to a private. Not having a quartermaster nearby maybe the officer just cut the top 2 off with his knife or bayonet to make this man an example of doing something extremely stupid.

Very unlikely scenario. To me it is just a cut down chevron done for reasons unknown. Sometimes the simplest explanation is the way to go. We should not read too much into a lot of these little bits, but the hope for discovering a rare and valuable item and wishful thinking are hard to avoid.

[Manchu Warrior]

Isn't that the little known rank of Tech-Private First Class?

[jim46]

Perhaps a newly promoted corporal couldn't find corporal stripes so he cut down a set of technician 3rd grade stripes. Then, he sewed on the two stripes he needed and threw away what is shown here.

[chcole1]

That makes a lot of sense given that there seems to be less black border on the top. I'll need to take a closer look when I get home tonight.

 

Chris

[patches]

That makes a lot of sense given that there seems to be less black border on the top. I'll need to take a closer look when I get home tonight.

 

Chris

What that is, is what several other guys have said, the bottom of a T/3 chevron, a white/silver embroidered on black twill with black border type, which no doubt was part of a pair that was cannibalized for the upper stripes to be used as an ad hoc pair of Corporal stripes, nothing more, nothing less.

[francesco-5th]

It is the bottom part of a S/Sgt T-3 chevron.

 

I agree

[Lackland82]

you can see where the rank was cut. agree with the others, looks like the bottom of a S/Sgt T-3 rank.

[Steve B.]

As a kid, I cut the T off a set of wool-on-wool T-4/Sgt stripes because Sgt Saunders on "Combat" was a plain ol' buck Sergeant. The "T" off of those stripes might still eb floating around somewhere.

 

Looks to me like someone needed/wanted some Corporal stripes and only had the T-3 stripes.