USAF Grade History
When the US Air Force was split from the US Army on July 26, 1947, it inherited the Army enlisted ranks; the lowest USAF enlisted rank became "Private" (falling immediately below Private, E-2), which wore no rank insignia.
In March 1952 the Air Council and United States Air Force Chief of Staff (Gen Hoyt Vandenberg) adopted a number of changes to the Air Force enlisted rank structure that had been recommended by studies made in 1950 and 1951. On April 24, 1952, Air Force Regulation 39-36 was published, changing the name of the lowest enlisted Air Force rank to "Basic Airman"—whose members still bore no insignia—immediately below the new "Airman Third Class".
On February 5, 1959, the new Air Force regulation governing the titles of enlisted ranks was released; the only change being direction that the title for E-1 was changed from "Basic Airman" to the current "Airman Basic".
Read more about this topic: Airman Basic
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