Master Chief or Warrant Officer

The question on who was the first Warrant Officer has now been answered with a document viewed from the Archives.   Thanks Fred W for the article.

Investigations also highlighted that Laurie Carr (Long ‘C’ Communicator) was originally going to call them Master Chiefs, like the USN, but when he talked to the RN, they said they were about to introduce a new rank and were going to call them Warrant Officers, so Laurie changed it.  Perfidious Albion, when they introduced their new rank then went and called them Fleet Chiefs – just shows, you can’t trust them Limeys.  They eventually followed us in 1985.

Postie produced a list of the top 30 Technical and 30 non-Technical on the roster and they were it.  So you would have to say that the “first” were the top of each roster.  So CRD Hewson was the first communicator on that score.

Non Tech Listing

Tech Listing

Also attached are a not very good pic from the Dominion and the list of abbreviations.

The Introduction of the new ranks