I was just reading about Howard Cosell on Wikipedia and was amazed to read that he rose to the rank of Major in the Army during World War II in four years. His service was from 1941 to 1945. According to the article, he was in the Transportation Corps.
One website I found contained the following information:
How is it that he was promoted so fast? I don’t get it. I was under the impression that you had to spend at least a decade in the Army before making Major.
Did they issue promotions more quickly in World War II era?
Promotions are always issued more quickly in times of war. There are more men to command, for one, which means you need more commanders. Also, people have more opportunity to be promoted for bravery, or to replace commanders who are killed in action. During WWII, this was probably even greater, since so many people were drafted and the all-out war effort required officers.
I seem to remember hearing about professionals (like medical doctors) commissioned or drafted into higher ranks (like Major+) during WW2, commensurate with their age and experience - correct or no?
As mentioned, wartime means fast promotion – stupendously so if like the USA in WW2 you are doing total mobilization from a less-than 500,000-man total standing military in 1940 to a 12+ million-strong combined force in 1945. 24-fold expansion by itself requires management positions to multiply, plus as mentioned there is accelerated attrition at officer billets not just from casualties, but from people being transferred as new missions arose and others being removed from posts quickly if fast results were needed and they could not do it. In Cosell’s case there’s also a case of there being a state of total mobilization where you’d have military officers overseeing normally civilian activities. This contrasted in turn with the peacetime Regular Army pre-1939, where you could be stuck for over a decade between promotions. In doing O-1 to O-4 in <4 years Cosell is in the company of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford among others.
As for the direct-commissioned professionals, zombywoof, even today they may make entry at up to O-3 depending on specialty, experience and needs of the service. These then would also count for fast promotion…
It wasn’t breveting in the traditional sense of the word. In the 20th century the US Army created the National Army(NA) and the Army of the United States (AUS) for World Wars One and Two respectfully. The NA and AUS were components of the Army as a whole that contained the expanded Regular Army (the peace time professional army), the National Guard (units belonging to the various states), and the mobilized volunteers and draftees (the aforementioned NA/AUS). To meet the huge demand for officers and NCOs as the army grew explosively Regular Army officers and even qualified NCOs were conferred rank inside the NA/AUS, while retaining their “permanent” rank inside the Regular Army. For example Ike, for a time at least, held his permanent rank of Colonel and the AUS rank of General of the Army. His status as a five star was later made permanent, but this worked the other way with disgraced officers. If it suited the situation they would simply revert to their permanent rank and be sent back to the states to stay out of trouble.
Like others have said, historically, wartime has meant a very rapid expansion of the armed services, which means that the pre-war Colonels and Captains will likely end up Generals and Admirals, and that pre-war Lieutenants and Captains will end up Majors and Colonels. Beyond that, you’ll need people to fill in those slots that were left; those replacements will gain rank faster than their predecessors.
Beyond that, you have the situation of replacing combat losses.
All this combines to have fairly rapid promotion during wartime, if you’re halfway competent. My dad went from E-1 to E-5 during his 4 year enlistment in the Air Force during Vietnam, which is something that I understand you can’t really do in 4 years these days.
A friend went from O-1 to O-3 in less than 3 years in the Army (got out last year); again, during peacetime, that generally isn’t the case.
FWIW, my dad had two years of college when he enlisted - he wasn’t drafted - in the Army. He served from 1955-57 and went from E-1 to E-5. This was on peacetime duty in southern Germany with the 8th Infantry Division.
Could be the college, I suppose. Dad actually enlisted in the AF to avoid being drafted into the Army after college, so he had a degree when he enlisted.
Being a WWII aviation buff, I have read more than my share on the subject. In World War II in the Army Air Corps it wasn’t unusual for a Colenel to be in his early 30’s or late 20’s. Once reason cited for the rapid rise in rank was attrition. The Air Corps was losing men at an alarming rate in the time between 1942 and 1944. In a lot of cases men were promoted to senior ranks because there was no one else to promote, many higher ranks being killed in combat.
Even today I am surprised at the rise in rank in the Air Force. I have a good friend who is an F16 pilot with several tours in Iraq. He went in as a second lt. and within 4 years was a major. Of course his rise was not due to attrition. He is a smart guy and a very capable pilot, but I am sure that can be said of most of the pilots in the AF. How he rose so fast is really beyond me.
Henry H. “Hap” Arnold started WWII as a two-star general and ended it as a five-star general. He’s the only man to ever hold five-star rank in two different services (the Army and the Air Force): Henry H. Arnold - Wikipedia
Yeah, one thing people don’t realize is that over the course of the whole war, the 8th Air Force lost more men killed than the Navy and Marine Corps combined. It’s just that losing 10-20 airplanes on a one-day mission doesn’t look as impressive as the first day of Iwo Jima. Never mind that 1 B-17 = 10 men.
The difference was, the 8th AF flew several missions a week at that rate for MONTHS, with some missions worse than others. You were lucky indeed to survive your 25 missions unscathed.
One of my great-uncles was a 1st-year medical school student when the Spanish Civil War started. He’d taken his finals but hadn’t received his grades yet - by the time he did, he’d been a field surgeon for 4 years, spent part of that time in charge of a field hospital and made Captain. I understand that, once back in school, he aced those practicals his teachers didn’t simply discharge him from on the basis of “already tested in the field”. His father (my great-gramps) had been an instant Captain based on his age and management experience: the logistics job they needed him to do required him to order the occasional Ensign or Lieutenant around, so “take this letter and go get us those warehouses organized”.
They weren’t career military; the promotions stayed with them but they got released back to civilian life as soon as it was feasible.
My uncle went to England with VIII Bomber Command in 1942 as a lieutenant, and by Spring 1945 was a Lt. Colonel commanding a B-17 Bombardment Group at age 27.
In the American Civil War George Armstrong Custer graduated West Point in 1861 and was a brevert general by the end of June, 1863 at the ripe old age of 23.