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Today in World War II History—September 22, 1942: Germans split Soviet 62nd Army in Stalingrad and occupy the southern half of the city. US Army raises grade of first sergeant to that of master sergeant.
From Sarah Sundin's blog
Clearly, the item about the Battle of Stalingrad is the important item, but I've linked this in here due to the item on U.S. Army ranks. On this day in 1942 the grade of the rank of First Sergeant was made equal to that of Master Sergeant.
We've discussed enlisted Army ranks here before, indeed more than once, I think.
First Sergeant are the senior enlisted NCO's in a company, battery or troop. It's an important rank, and it's been around for an extremely long time. He is, literally, the "first" sergeant and for enlisted soldiers often the most senior soldier they typically engage with, commonly nicknamed "top".
When the Army was reorganized in 1920, 1st Sergeants were given the grade of E-6. That would surprise modern soldiers, as that's the grade now held by Staff Sergeants, who at that time held the grade E-5. E-5 today is held by the rank of Sergeant, but at that time, Sergeants were E-4s, as they still are in the Air Force.
Master Sergeants, that title indicating a senior status to that sometimes indicated for master tradesmen, were E-7s. Today, that grade is held by the rank of Sergeant First Class. That rank didn't exist in 1920.
On this day in 1942 the Army adopted a new enlisted structure, changing some of the enlisted ranks. Technician grades, which we've earlier discussed, were adopted, foreshadowing the later introduction of Specialists. Enlisted ranks remained the same up through Staff Sergeant. First Sergeants were moved from E-6 to E-7, making them the equivalent of Master Sergeants, and an additional rocker was added to their insignia to indicate their equivalency. In the E-6 position the rank of Technical Sergeant, which had already coexisted with First Sergeant, remained.
This basic structure remained until 1948 when technicians were eliminated, but new rank insignia were introduced for non combatant NCO's, only barely distinguishable from those of combatants. Technical Sergeant, at that time, was renamed to Sergeant First Class. Moreover, the rank of "Recruit" was introduced for what had been "buck privates", and introduced at the E-1 level, making there three grades of privates. The rank of Staff Sergeant was eliminated, and buck Sergeants took their insignia.
Specialists were added in 1955.
n 1959 a jump in grades happened in enlisted ranks overall. Staff Sergeants were reintroduced as E-6s, acquiring their prior insignia, and Sergeants became E-5s and reacquired their three chevron and no rocker insignia., Sergeants First Class took the E-7 grade and First Sergeants (and Master Sergeants) E-8s. The rank of "Recruit" was renamed Private E-1. Privates at the E-3 level worse the single chevron, as they had since 1948. This is basically the structure we've had since then, except that PFC's obtain a rocker in 1968, and Private E-2 reclaimed the single stripe insignia that they hadn't had since 1948.
The upper Specialists insignia over E-4 have also largely disappeared.
As this recitation also notes, the Technician grades were introduced during the same year as Top got a promotion and pay raise. They'd existed since January.
In a manner that only made sense to the Army, two stripe technicians were introduced at the grade of E-3, but with the title of Technician 5th grade. If that doesn't quite made sense, its because the "E" structure that I've been using here wasn't introduced until 1949. Prior to that, while the E grades noted here offer equivalency, so that it's easy to tell the actual changes over time, pay grades went by a simple number. Pay grade 7 was the lowest, and it was the one that applied to buck privates, or what we'd later refer to, most of the time, to Private E-1s. Pay grade 1 was the highest, which was equivalent to the post 1949 E-7.
That right there helps explain some of this evolution, by the way. There was nothing higher than pay grade 1, in enlisted ranks, and that was equivalent to E-7. Now, the highest enlisted grade normally encountered is E-8, which Master Sergeants and First Sergeants occupy, as of 1959. In that same year, 1959, the rank of Sergeant Major was introduced at E-9, as was Specialist E-9. E-9 remains the highest enlisted grade today, although there are several different types of Sergeant Majors that occupy it, some being exceedingly rare.
Anyhow, back to technicians. Introduced in January, right after the war started, their existence reflected the much more technical Army of 1940 as compared to earlier. The creation of the rank was an attempt to create a rank and pay scheme for men who were not combatants. Something had to be done, but the experiment wasn't really successful, leading to the change to combatant and non-combatant ratings in 1948, and ultimately to the not hugely successful creation of specialists ranks in 1959. On that latter creation, the number of specialist ranks was already being reduced by 1967 and was further cut back in 1978. When I joined the National Guard in 1981, there were still Specialist E-6s, but in 1985 that was changed so that only Specialist E-4 remained. At the same time, however, the increasingly professional nature of the Army after the elimination of the draft meant that the number of men occupying lower enlisted ranks increased, and therefore the Army reduced the number of Corporal E-4s in favor of Specialist E-4s, the distinction being that Corporals are NCOs and Specialists are not.
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