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Rare USMC ranks in photos


SgtMaddoxUSMC
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SgtMaddoxUSMC

Great shots on Lon Chaney! Wearing all three variations of the 1912 Gunnery Sergeant chevron - Service, shirt and dress!
Also love the photo from the yardlong you linked! I would love to get my hands on some of those sometime! Thanks for sharing all of those!

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SgtMaddoxUSMC

And here a few shots from Jack Webb in 1957's "The D.I." showing him wearing bevo style chevrons and also the short-lived wide metal collar chevrons (three chevrons and two rockers was Technical Sergeant at the time).. This was all from just before the current rank structure took effect in 1959.

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Is this rare? well maybe not but a great photo nonetheless, Master Gunnery Sergeant William Sutphin of the Armed Forces Vietnam Network, Saigon 1967

 

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SgtMaddoxUSMC

I love the old khaki uniforms! Also looks like the SSgt there might be wearing the old plastic collar chevrons that everyone hated. I am still trying to finish my collection of those... few of the ranks are still eluding me!

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  • 4 weeks later...

Just happened to open Find-A-Grave the other day and clicked a link over to Ancestry and this is the photo that was on the top masthead of their webpage.... photo of Marine wearing Musician - Marine Band chevrons with a stack of hashmarks to boot.

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SgtMaddoxUSMC

Was sitting down at the PI library today and came across this in an old 1933 issue of Leatherneck.. another musician with a few hashmarks AND wearing a cloak!

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SgtMaddoxUSMC

Here is the 1930's style Paymaster Sergeant chevron being worn in a 1933 issue of Leatherneck:

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  • 3 weeks later...
SgtMaddoxUSMC

http://www.usmilitariaforum.com/forums/index.php?/topic/205429-96th-co-6th-marines-quantico-oct221917-yardlong/page-2

Another shot of the 1912 Gunnery Sergeant shirt chevron in this detail from a yardlong dated October, 1917. This is GySgt Fred W. Stockham who succumbed to his wounds June 22, 1918 in France, several days after he removed his own gasmask to put it onto a wounded Private during a gas attack. For his heroic action, 2ndLt Clifton Cates who was in the company at the time, recommended him for the Medal of Honor but the paperwork was lost and was not resubmitted until around 1939 when Cates was a LtCol. Finally, on Dec 21, 1939, Gunnery Sergeant Stockham was posthumously awarded his Medal of Honor, over twenty years after he died.

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  • 3 months later...
SgtMaddoxUSMC

Here is a great close-up from a shot showing a group of Gunnery Sergeants wearing the 1929 chevron and droop-wing collar EGAs.

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  • 3 weeks later...
SgtMaddoxUSMC

Colorized photo from a recruiting paperwork folder from 1942 showing the short-lived trumpet corporal rank from about 1936-1940-something.

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SgtMaddoxUSMC

Okay, I am kind of going against my own SOP on this thread but here is a drawing from a comic showing the short-lived Platoon Sergeant rank. Found in the August 1939 edition of "The Tientsin U.S. Marine". Shows a bunch of Marines not listening to their newly promoted SNCO ramble on in moto-speak. Seems not much has changed in the past 78 years hahaha

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SgtMaddoxUSMC

Here is a nice press photo from 1927 from the Marines' 152nd birthday in Philadelphia. One of the Marines is wearing a 1898 Gunnery Sergeant uniform with the early dress chevrons. It is a few decades after it would have been replaced but it is no doubt an authentic uniform.

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  • 2 weeks later...
SgtMaddoxUSMC

Found this pre-1900 photo of the Marine Band in DC... The Drum Major appears to have a six-pointed star in the centre of his chevron. Anyone else agree?

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SgtMaddoxUSMC

Here is a photo from Dirk's China Marine page showing the 4th Marines band in Shanghai in October 1937. The drum major appears to be wearing the short-lived "baton" chevron which consisted of three chevrons, two ties and an angled baton in the center. This is the only photo I have seen thus far of a Marine wearing this chevron. Working on IDing the Marine to see if we can find more photos of him where the rank is more visible. This rank is also seen on one of the 1936(?) Leatherneck covers (I cannot remember which month) showing the new rank insignia of the time.

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