Revoked Paramarine w/ Wings?

[BRO&USMC]

Hello, 

I wonder if a revoked Paramarine could wear parachute wings after his transfert on his dress uniform? 

The Marine in question qualified himself as a Parachutist in May 1943 and assigned to the 4th Para Bn, FMF. In August he was revoked and sent overseas. 
In the revokation's letter, there is a reference of Article 26-13 (12) (2), Marine Corps Manual. It only concerns pay of aviation but no mention of awards.   

 

Thank you, 

Al

 

 

[Brig]

What do you mean by "revoked"? If his badge was revoked, then he would not wear it...but it would be hard to imagine this happening. Currently, we can revoke MCMAP belts because they are (loosely) tied to leadership, but it's very rarely done and usually only by very spiteful commanders. 

 

If he was simply transferred, he would continue to wear his wings

[BRO&USMC]

There is the letter of revocation. It's only about the designation of Parachutist and there is no mention about the badge. I guess only his specialty as a Parachutist is revoked and his MOS changed to be 521 (other duty). 

 

[Brig]

No, it seems they did revoke the badge, as it's a qualifying badge for parachutists.

 

Never seen that before. Bet they got on trouble during liberty or something. Unfortunately, his legal record is only releasable to next of kin

[Brian Dentino]

Oh boy these fella's must have done something to really p!ss someone off!  After all, the USMC Para Battalions were not very large units in the grand scheme of things during this time of war.  It took a lot of extra time and money to train these Marines to be paratroopers, along with the selection of the "cream of the crop" after the grueling process, so it had to be something pretty serious for them to have their wings and designations stripped like this.  I can say I have never seen anything just like this from this time period before to someone in the USMC Para Battalions.  I have seen more than a few Army guys stripped of their wings and sent to the "ground pounder" units, but never a Marine (or 4).

[Brig]

I would certainly be interested in learning more about this story, too. Must have been a doozy.

 

Even more curious is that it's on the authority of the XO and not the CO. Pollock was the OIC of Flight Activities, so his involvement certainly makes sense. But I would have expected the CO LtCol Shepard to be the authority on something this significant...at a minimum

[Linedoggie]

by then Vandegrift had already decided to disband the Paramarine units to free up 3k men and R4D transports and $150K of jump pay per month

[BRO&USMC]

10 hours ago, Brig said:

No, it seems they did revoke the badge, as it's a qualifying badge for parachutists.

 

Never seen that before. Bet they got on trouble during liberty or something. Unfortunately, his legal record is only releasable to next of kin

So no badge anymore after this event? 

I have his complete Military file. I'll check it out if I can find more information about this revocation. It's strange that there is no trial or something else. 

Thanks for your reply!

[BRO&USMC]

8 hours ago, Brian Dentino said:

Oh boy these fella's must have done something to really p!ss someone off!  After all, the USMC Para Battalions were not very large units in the grand scheme of things during this time of war.  It took a lot of extra time and money to train these Marines to be paratroopers, along with the selection of the "cream of the crop" after the grueling process, so it had to be something pretty serious for them to have their wings and designations stripped like this.  I can say I have never seen anything just like this from this time period before to someone in the USMC Para Battalions.  I have seen more than a few Army guys stripped of their wings and sent to the "ground pounder" units, but never a Marine (or 4).

The funny part is that all of these Marines were transferred to the same unit after that and some were still together in 1945! 

A friend of I who has a lot of interest about the Army paratroopers told me the same story about the guys whom badge has been stripped off and transferred in other unit. As you stated, that's the first time I'm seeing revocation like this. In September 1942, he wrote to the CO of his company at NOB, Norfolk and presented his wishes to be transferred to the Amphibian Tractor School. I have no more mention about his request and I think he was selected for paratroops then. Maybe after he graduated as Paratroopers he asked for a transfer but there is no mention about this in his file… 

 

[BRO&USMC]

6 hours ago, Brig said:

I would certainly be interested in learning more about this story, too. Must have been a doozy.

 

Even more curious is that it's on the authority of the XO and not the CO. Pollock was the OIC of Flight Activities, so his involvement certainly makes sense. But I would have expected the CO LtCol Shepard to be the authority on something this significant...at a minimum

I will share his story when his uniform will be in my hands. I already have his file and the uniform still have the Wings badge on it this is why I concern about this question… 

[Brig]

2 hours ago, BRO&USMC said:

So no badge anymore after this event? 

I have his complete Military file. I'll check it out if I can find more information about this revocation. It's strange that there is no trial or something else. 

Thanks for your reply!

Yes, it appears he was stripped of his badge entirely.

 

There might very well have been a trial, but NARA doesn't release medical or legal records outside of requests from next of kin, so you likely wouldn't have it in your copy.

 

It could also have been stripped non-judicially through office hours, but again I would expect that to have been from the CO as it would have required a commander's authority. At the very least, I would have expected the XO to sign the document "BY DIR" and not the Flight Ops OIC.

[stratasfan]

How interesting. Here are his Muster rolls, which show where he was at for the months of the MR:

 

[BRO&USMC]

2 hours ago, Brig said:

Yes, it appears he was stripped of his badge entirely.

 

There might very well have been a trial, but NARA doesn't release medical or legal records outside of requests from next of kin, so you likely wouldn't have it in your copy.

 

It could also have been stripped non-judicially through office hours, but again I would expect that to have been from the CO as it would have required a commander's authority. At the very least, I would have expected the XO to sign the document "BY DIR" and not the Flight Ops OIC.

Thank for your help!

Even in his record book there is no mention of trial or any issues in connection with justice. My guess would be that he maybe asked for a transfer or something and didn't want to be a paratrooper anymore. Who knows? 
 

[BRO&USMC]

2 hours ago, stratasfan said:

How interesting. Here are his Muster rolls, which show where he was at for the months of the MR:

 

Thank you! 

I have his full military file and an Ancestry account so all his muster rolls too but I appreciate your comment :)

 

[camopara]

I think you are on the right track for research the manual.  I think this is for removing them from the specialty pay rather than revoking their wings.  I had a similar group to a 4th BN guy who went on to duty with the 2nd Div. 

[Brig]

That would technically be a revocation of a status, not a qualification, though. Parachutist was an MOS, and would have just become a secondary MOS when the Marines transferred into a billet requiring another MOS

 

I agree that I find it hard to believe that 4 able-bodied parachutists would be transferred out of a Parachute battalion in 1943 without getting into some sort of trouble

[pfrost]

So to clarify, does that "revocation" cover just the status of being a parachutist alone?  I was always under the impression that once you earned the qualification, you were allowed to wear it, even if you weren't still actively doing that task.  You often see senior guys wearing qualification earned earlier in their career.  Just wondering, this is an interesting thread.  Not having been in the military, its kind of a new area of knowledge for me.

 

I know in the past, we have talked about officers wearing gunner wings that they earned as enlisted men and still wore on their uniforms despite not actually being a gunner on an airplane anymore.

 

Also, injury or some other physical ailment may have derailed their status as parachutists, other than being bad boys on leave.  You see that with pilots sometime, where they just weren't passed by the doctor to continue flying.  I have some letters from about 1944 where a guy was having psychological problems with flying and was taken of flight status. He was writing to his wife about how bad he felt about that.

 

[Brig]

2 hours ago, pfrost said:

So to clarify, does that "revocation" cover just the status of being a parachutist alone?  I was always under the impression that once you earned the qualification, you were allowed to wear it, even if you weren't still actively doing that task.  You often see senior guys wearing qualification earned earlier in their career.  Just wondering, this is an interesting thread.  Not having been in the military, its kind of a new area of knowledge for me.

 

I know in the past, we have talked about officers wearing gunner wings that they earned as enlisted men and still wore on their uniforms despite not actually being a gunner on an airplane anymore.

 

Also, injury or some other physical ailment may have derailed their status as parachutists, other than being bad boys on leave.  You see that with pilots sometime, where they just weren't passed by the doctor to continue flying.  I have some letters from about 1944 where a guy was having psychological problems with flying and was taken of flight status. He was writing to his wife about how bad he felt about that.

 

Taken off a status would not result in taking away the wings. The only time that an entire badge would be revoked would be as a punishment or a serious offense. Otherwise, it would be exactly as you say...they would continue to wear the badge even when they left the unit, but would not collect the pay associated with active jump status. Same holds true for aviators.

[BRO&USMC]

Sorry that I haven't been active since a while… busy weeks… 

@pfrost : On his qualification card, his MOS 328, Parachutist, was crossed out, so he wasn't a paratrooper anymore and his MOS changed to 521 (other duty). The manual is only talking about pay roll and no mention about qualification or badge earned. 

I think the article mentionned in the letter would be find here : https://archive.org/details/MarineManual1940/page/932/mode/2up 

 

Contrary to other Marines mentionned in the revocation letter, there is no mention of any trial for Charles Markle. Maybe it was just a revocation of status such as @Brig stated earlier, I would agree with you. 

Thank you both for your help on this thread!