Okay, that's not the end of the world. But saying it and doing it were horses of a different hue. All those folks who had been Army Air Corps members were suddenly in the United States Air Force. Yet they still looked like Army. They dressed like Army and they even lived in Army-type barracks, ate in Army-type mess halls and behaved much as they did as soldiers. They were not distinct "airmen".
Though the President signed the legislation to create the separate US Air Force in 1947, things were still pretty much in flux (I dare not say chaos) by 1952. That's the year that I joined up as an Airman Basic (airman last class, they called us raw recruits). The Air Force had earlier announced its new blue uniforms, with much publicity and fanfare. But the troops out there in the field, airfield that is, still looked mostly like Army troops. Well, sort of.
I remember standing in various lines to be issued my uniforms and military gear. Not quite half of it was blue. The rest was khaki and tan. Our boots were brown, though we were given bottles of black dye to make 'em look Air Force. It takes a lot of work to make brown combat boots look really black and take on a proper shine.
When we "fell out" in formation to march off to class or to the mess hall (that's an Army term for today's more modern dining facility) we were in mixed colors. Some fellows wore blue shirts with their khaki trousers. With yet others it was the opposite, khaki shirts and blue trousers. Most dress shoes were black. Was that Air Force black or Navy black?
About the only time we all looked alike was when we wore fatigues. Those were one-piece coveralls we wore to do dirty jobs (like KP and crawling on our bellies on the obstacle course or the rifle range). I thought the Army was supposed to use rifles. We were in the airplane business. I hated those hot, sweaty coveralls. They were made of a canvas-like cloth that just didn't breath, but they sure were durable. No matter what we did we couldn't wear 'em out.
The most derision we took from our former Army comrades, stemmed from our new blue dress uniforms. The Class "A" blue uniforms we eventually got were quite plain. In fact they were a real departure from the past. No longer did Air Force men wear Army unit badges, like infantry cross rifles or artillery guns. We didn't wear epaulet color bands or cords. About all we sported were simple "US" pins on our lapels and rank on our sleeves (if we had any). Basic recruits like us had no stripes on our sleeves at all. We were as plain as bus drivers. And in fact that's what folks called us - bus drivers, because we looked very much like them. Civilians and especially Army people said we were bus drivers. Oh the indignity of it all.
The very first ribbon that I got to wear on my plain basic uniform was, now get this, an Army good conduct medal. It would be years before the Air Force created and issued their own.
Yes sir, that transition from Army Air Corps to United States Air Force took a heck of a lot more than the stroke of a Presidential pen. I look back at all of that now with a smile, but at the time it was serious business. We sure were a Motley Looking Bunch.