The separation of the Army Air Forces from the Army on 18 September 1947 found the Air Force needing to resolve many force and organizational structure problems. Among these problems was determining the line composition officer (rated aviation, nonrated), and non-line (medical, legal, clergy) composition to include how they fit into the operational command and functional support leadership hierarchies.
Policies were quickly established by the Air Force detailing the types of units its rated line officer, nonrated line officers and non-line officers (medical, chaplain, legal) could and could not command. This contributed to nonrated line officers and non-line officers being primarily assigned to support roles. These policies also exerted strong influences on both enlisted and officer career opportunities and paths. By extension this included how the Air Force approached training its officers and Noncommissioned Officers (NCOs) for small tactical unit operational and functional leadership roles, duties, and responsibilities.
During this period the practicality and legitimacy of assigning company grade Medical Corps and Medical Service Corps officers to command and supervise pararescue teams was becoming compromised by several factors.
The first factor to emerge is there being a critical shortage of medical officers serving in the military and specifically the Air Force. This caused Medical Service Corps officers to expand into and assume roles created by the shortage of Medical Corps officers. Beginning in 1948 this situation initiated the gradual change over of Medical Corps officers commanding parachute rescue teams to Medical Service Corps officers in 1948.
Effective 2 October 1952 policy decision was implemented to remove Medical Corps officers (physicians) from jump status and prohibiting them from participating in actual Pararescue mission operations of any sort as the inherent hazards (risks) far outweighed the gain obtained. Subsequently, effective November 1952 Medical Service Corps officers were removed from Air Rescue Service manning documents. Those Medical Service Corps lingering in Air Rescue assignments were also removed from jump status and prohibited from participating in actual Pararescue mission operations. Consequently, at this time the duties of commander for these pararescue teams reverted to Master Sergeants as a decision was made not to replace these medical officers with rated or non-rated line officers.
The lack of an officer being there to command and lead pararescue operations on the surface continued until the Combat Rescue Officer AFSC was established in 2001.
The second factor being the combined provisions of the Chicago Agreement of 1947 and the subsequent Geneva Conventions of 1949 addressing aerial search and rescue operations during peacetime and periods of armed conflict introduced Laws of Armed Conflict legality risks. The legality risks is Medical Corps, Medical Service, Nursing commissions establishing medical being exclusively in medical service that establishes a noncombatant status. By 1956, these concerns plus career progression being connected to medical service assignments contributed to the deletion of aeromedics from participating in combat rescue operations as crew-members on air rescue aircraft.
This sequential prohibiting and removal of medical service officers from participating in actual Pararescue mission operations was extended to not replacing medical service officers with line (rated/nonrated) officers. Instead, the decision was made late in 1952 to assign and utilize noncommissioned officers (Master Sergeants) as pararescue team commanders.
The vocabulary context of Team Commander is identifying command permissions, duties, responsibilities, and autonomy delegated to these NCOs as the lowest command authority in the operational chain of command responsible for executing the commander’s intent. It is the emergence of the Pararescue Team Leader qualification and certification as an occupation specialty career education, training, and development requirement.
Such duties and responsibilities become of importance once the appropriate commander (mission, task force, unit) has made the decision that pararescue forces are needed to accomplish the mission with the technical decision that the successful use of pararescue is feasible being made by the pararescue team commander (subsequently Team Leader).
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This required being directly involved in mission planning whether based on immediate response pre-launch mission information or preplanned crisis or contingency response information. Should the pararescue team be committed to surface operations the team leader directs the actions, capabilities, and actions of the team to accomplish the objectives.
In 1951 the Air Force implemented its own physical fitness standards, replacing the previously used Army physical fitness standards. The physical fitness training and standards implemented by the Air Force avoided putting a premium upon the strength, stamina, agility, and coordination.
Even when the Air Force implemented the Five Basic Exercise (5BX) program for males and the Ten Basic Exercise (XBX) program for females in 1962 the Air Force’s fitness standards were and remain ineffective in developing and sustaining physical efficiency for military effectiveness.
The Air Force as early as 1947 recognized pararescue had a unique core total military fitness (combat effectiveness) requirement to perform in physically demanding austere environments. To satisfy this requirement it was decided to include physical fitness as a required daily military duty requirement. This allowed pararescue to develop and implement its own core fitness training and testing with inclusion of swimming training and testing in accordance with the Army’s 1946 FM 21-10 Physical Fitness manual.
By 1952, the aircrew standardization program provided the means to introduce pararescue mission ready fitness standards as an annual mission ready evaluation requirement which eventually became an Air Force Teir II career occupation-specific fitness standard. It should be noted that it’s not until 1988 that other AFSCs began introducing fitness programs modeled after the pararescue indoctrination and mission ready fitness programs.
Simultaneously, during the period from 1947 to 1952 the removal of officers from the pararescue teams introduced the consequence of needing enlisted personnel possessing the ability to provide leadership under conditions of strain, confusion and stress. Consequently, the combined consequences of higher leadership and physical fitness ability requirements and increasing training costs created the need to screen, assess, and select the better suitable volunteer candidates.
Individual and group situational problem solving and physically demanding training events were integrated throughout all phases of pararescue training provided by the 5th Rescue Squadron, MacDill AFB Florida in June 1948 (subsequently 2156th Air Rescue Squadron-Technical Training Unit, Palm Beach International Airport, Florida).
All these multi-capable cross utilization training developments necessary to produce enlisted combatant airmen prepared for immediate world-wide deployment with peak physical performance to potentially independently operate across all surface terrains and environments to include unfriendly and hostile military environments was sufficient to justify, validate and authorize student self-elimination from training policies.
This laid the foundation for the prerequisite formal entry into AFSC assessment, selection, and screening course known as the Pararescue Indoctrination course at Lackland AFB in 1965. A mandatory pre-entry into AFSC awarding training course which subsequently laid the foundation for the Air Force Special Warfare Assessment and Selection screening program implemented in 2019.
Regardless, it’s the 1947 request of the Headquarters Air Rescue Service for authorization and activation of permanently constituted mission ready pararescue teams followed quickly with the request to authorize and establish Specification Serial Number that was approved no later than June 1948. Thus, although pararescue operations were accomplished during the Second World War it was accomplished by personnel given additional training to perform such duties on a as needed status.
The SSN was converted in May 1951 to an AFSC unique to the Air Rescue Service which was acquired the responsibility to provide the Air Force trained and qualified pararescue personnel. By 1952 this enlisted career occupation specialty had acquired an approved Air Force specialty training program, firmly established essential occupation specialty specific human performance requirements and standards, specified operational (mission/tactical) leadership duties and responsibilities, and a rudimentary applicant assessment and selection program at a quality not quantity level not being replicated, duplicated, or imitated as mandatory entry into and retention of AFSC requirements by any other Air Force specialty occupation or career field until the mid-1980s.
(from Wikipedia…)