My grandfather was in the Army and served in the Philippines during WWII. His discharge papers list his rank as Technician 4th Grade however the stripes on his uniform are those of a Sargent. I am curious if he was just a Technician 4th Grade or a T/4 Sargent, are they the same thing or are they different.
According to Wiki, after 1942, he would have worn this patch Technicians On January 8, 1942, under War Department Circular No. 5, the ranks of Technician Third Grade (T/3), Technician Fourth Grade (T/4), and Technician Fifth Grade (T/5) were created and replaced the existing specialist ranks. Initially, these ranks used the same insignia as the Staff Sergeant, Sergeant, and Corporal, but on September 4, 1942, Change 1 to AR 600-35 added a "T" for "Technician" to the standard chevron[2] Despite that, as with the Specialists that they replaced, unofficial insignia using a specialty symbol instead of the T were used in some units.[citation needed] design that corresponded with that grade. A technician was generally not addressed as such, but rather as the equivalent line (NCO) rank in its pay grade (T/5 as Corporal; T/4 as Sergeant; T/3 as Sergeant or Staff Sergeant). Officially, a technician did not have the authority to give commands or issue orders but could under combat conditions be placed second in command of a squad by a Sergeant. Unofficially, most units treated them as though they were of the equivalent rank of the same pay grade.[citation needed] The Technician ranks were removed from the rank system in 1948. The concept was brought back with Specialist ranks of in 1955. United States Army enlisted rank insignia of World War II - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia I bolded the sentence that I think applies.
