U.S. Navy Enlisted Ranks (WW2)

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[afranca]

To the non-Navy personnel out there, this all may be confusing but to everyone in the fleet this all makes fairly good sense. There's a lot of pride in every rate.

[theislandsurvivor]

Navy warrant officer and commissioned officer ranks please.

[emefreeman]

You revealed a lot of history that's not typically talked about, thank you for that respect.

[joeyakathug]

How many rank titles do you want by their ratings?

Navy: Yes

[Re.Configured]

Something my CO told me a few weeks ago is that the petty in petty officer is derived from the French word petit rather than the English meaning of petty. This is best translated as junior rather than the literal meaning of small size. It was adopted by the Royal Navy back in the days when the French Navy were considered the cool guys that everyone wanted to emulate. And obviously the US Navy picked it up from the Royal Navy. I guess that makes sense, it was just something I never thought about.

[Nattieboop]

BZ Battle Order! Wonderful documentary as usual. You’re doing a great service for the military history resource community and your efforts will not go unnoticed. As an aside, I really appreciate the care you put into laying down the facts of what Black sailors faced in WWII as “second-class citizens” from everything like the lack of Chief representation to non-uniform rank insignia with the rest of the Fleet.

Again, wonderful video and I can’t wait to see what you’ll come up with next. With this nitty gritty format I’d love to see something similar for the U.S. Air Force with a slightly less messy, but still fairly strange enlisted rank structure, and for the general British Empire and Commonwealth conventions.

[robertcuminale]

Seabees used the fleet rates they had been recruited from. Later we got new insignia. I was a Construction Electrician and had a power pole with a lightning bolt through it. The rate did everything electrical, power generation and distribution, telephone exchanges, shop work like motor repairs and building wiring. There were the odd ball jobs like repairing washer machines and dryers, hanging anodes in a water tank 120 feet up to reverse static electricity and stop the paint damage. Being attached to the telephone exchange which were the Navy's Motion Picture Exchanges I also fixed projectors and damaged film. I also worked on the sound systems. A very technical rating combining parts of the fleet ratings like Interior Communications Electricians, Electricians Mates and others. In addition we had military duties as small arms company members. Small arms was the pistol, M16, Grenade launcher. We were more like an infantry battalion.
You guessed it. I don't know anything about ships.

[CAPNMAC]

Very late in WWII (if memory serves) 6 years' Good Conduct (and award of the medal) allowed PO to have silver bullion stripes. At 12 (second GCM award) the gold bullion was used. Disorderly Conduct lost the billion braid entire.
There was an unofficial (bu much used) term, "Striker" meaning a non-rated sailor having been approved to attend Rating School (what we would now call "A" School. Initially only 1/c could wear rating badges as Strikers, but later, 2/c were allowed if pre-qualified in their career field.

[ewhays]

My grandfather went in as an Elctrician's Mate 1c in 1948 recognizing his service in WW2 in the Merchant Marine when he was too young for enlistment. He served 20 years and would often wear his red chevrons as an extra layer in colder weather, despite never being busted down for discipline.

[scarling]

Awesome. Waited for this. Grandfather was Signalman 1st Class WW2, Pacific theater.

[stephenbritton]

Definitely need to cover the officers and warrants. And how on a few occasions during the war "SC" officers ended up commanding ships (which isn't supposed to happen).

[gregsmith]

My dad was a Yeoman second class before becoming a 90 day wonder officer during WW2. This was in Coast Guard that became part of the Navy during the same period. USCG today has many of the same petty officer symbols as Nav. My uncle was a first class Electricians Mate on USS Louisville. He saw some heavy action towards the end.

[patrickmclaughlin]

You didn’t mention naval mobile construction rates (CB) which was a huge part of the navy during ww2. The video was interesting!

[detroitpolak]

This was great!! My grandpa AND great uncle (never met till my parents wedding in ‘73. Quite the coincidence) were on the Saratoga and I’ve tried to get as much info as I can. They both died before I was old enough to really ask them about it.

[BigTrain]

Recently the Navy talked about doing away with Ratings. The howling could be heard for miles including from my wife who is a retired Chief Yeoman. They quickly backed off.

[kennethmiller]

One fun thing... the EM speciality mark is a screw-up. When the rating badge was developed, light bulbs were called globes. Supply ordered a group of badges with globes on them... and the manufacturer gave them just that. Oops.

[stevenckaroly]

You are confusing rate with rating. A rating is a sailor's occupational specialty, Ship's Cook, for example. A rate is the sailor's "rank." I place rank in quotes because historically sailors have not held rank. Naval officers hold rank, but not enlisted sailors. When you read World War II Navy muster reports on Fold3, when a Ship's Cook 1c was advanced to Chief Commissary Steward, for instance, the transaction was called a "change in rate."

A side note: the Quartermaster worked for the Navigator, not necessarily the Executive Officer. However, on many of the smaller ships, the XO was the Navigator, along with a myriad of other duties.

[AndyinMokum]

The musician's insignia isn't a harp. It's the ancient Greek stringed instrument, the lyre.

[bennybenitez]

From a Navy Cold War Veteran job well done. As we say Bravo-Zulu

[johnbeauvais]

My grandfather was a GM3c, if I recall correctly he had briefly made it to 2nd class but got busted back down after he told an officer to piss off when he was told to paint the inside of a gun tub in a combat area (Okinawa) which was against the regs.