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Thinking Outside the Box:
All I Ever Knew about Naval Ranks,
I Learnt from Star Trek
Chief Petty Officer 2nd Class E Gordon Howe, CF
2009 Winner Sailor’s Section
Like many of the current senior Non-Commissioned and Commissioned members
serving in today’s Commonwealth navies, I grew up in a non-military household. In our
youth, our only exposure to the military way of life was in small doses and delivered by
a television set. The appreciation of rank structure we gained from this exposure was
minimal at best. We learned from ‘the box’ that whether you were a member of ‘the
Unit’ or a crew member on the Starship Enterprise, the true heroes always seemed to
be officers. Oh … and never wear a red shirt while investigating a new planet.
When we enlisted or accepted our commissions, for reasons as individual as each of
us, we were confronted with an unexpected naval rank structure stratified not unlike
the civilian society we came from. There were those who, for whatever reason, were
designated to lead, and those who were designated to follow. You quickly realised that
of those designated leaders, there were those who were good at it and those who didn’t
even seem to grasp the concept. On the other side of the coin, it was readily apparent
that some of those that were supposed to follow weren’t very good at it either. As we
progressed through the ranks, what seemed at first glance a simple system became
more and more complex. When ratings, trades, specialties, training and other criteria
got thrown into the mix, the naval rank structure became much more complicated
than just Petty Officers or Lieutenant Commanders. Much of this complexity appears
to derive from the increasingly technological basis of today’s navy. To understand what
led to the modern naval rank structure, it is best to look at the origin of the practice and
the technological factor that has driven its evolution to today’s current rank structure.
Only then can we fully appreciate the crossroads at which we are currently standing.
Origins
The Commonwealth navies of today are, for the most part, direct descendants of the Royal
Navy (RN). The RN itself finds its roots in the feudal navies of the British Isles in the Middle
Ages. The rank structure of these nascent navies was primitive at best and for the most
part reflected the structure of feudal society itself. The ‘warships’ of this age were built
on the lines of the Viking invaders’ ships and were propelled mainly by oarsmen with
some assistance from a single square sail. The landowners of the various kingdoms were
charged with building, crewing and maintaining warships for the defence of their realms.