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WWII Private Specialist rank insignia photo


Martinjmpr
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Here's the story behind this picture: It's from a DVD that was prepared in 2009 for my wife's family reunion up near Menominee, MI (in the UP near Green Bay, WI.) It was the wife's dad's side of the family, an old Polish family that had settled in the Menominee area in the 19th century.

 

Two of my wife's grandfather's brothers (wife's great uncles, I guess) were twins who served together in WWII. They were in the WI National Guard and I believe they served in New Guinea.

 

In the photo below you can see one of the brothers was a corporal and the other a private-specialist with 4 rockers under his chevron. You can also see the 32nd Infantry division patch. Given that these photos (which were from an 8mm movie) were in color, the fact that the two brothers are in their dress uniforms and the fact that they don't seem to be wearing combat decorations, as well as the early WWII Private-Specialist rank insignia, this home movie was most likely taken before the brothers shipped off the New Guinea. According to Wikipedia, the division arrived in Australia in the Spring of 1942 so these photos were most likely taken no later than early 1942 and could even be prior to Pearl Harbor.

 

When I first saw these, I had no idea what the insignia meant because I'd never seen one before. When I got home, I googled a bit and found out about the Private-Specialist rank. What's funny is that I made it through 3 of the 4 levels of NCOES schooling in the Army (up through ANCOC) and even though they do teach some "NCO history" they tend to gloss over this period.

 

I would love to have talked to the brothers about their experiences during the war, but sadly they both died in the 1990's.

post-154311-0-23419800-1412283103.jpg

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  • 5 weeks later...
Pat_from_Brix

Great story ! Thanks for sharing ! These multiple rockers are definitively pre-1942 (August if I remember correctly) when the Army simplified the rank structure and introduced the T-5, T-4 and T-3.

 

You can also note the white shirt with class A jacket, which is a really pre-war thing (assuming colors are correct).

 

Pat

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