If the O-1 is smart (and listens to the advice of their superior officers), they’ll listen carefully to the W-4 or E-5 and mostly parrot their words and follow their recommendations. And the subordinate should do a lot of very polite teaching in the process, so the O-1 comes to understand the whys and wherefores of that Warrant’s or NCO’s guidance so they can make those decisions by themselves later.
I think I got my skill at professional teaching bringing up some very wet-behind-the-ears 2nd Lieutenants.
I got out as a frocked E-6, and I have known O-1s and O-2s I would follow to hell, and probably just as many that I really wanted to beat the shit out of. Most of the latter were ring-knockers.
I don’t know about WWII but in modern times that is not the case. I enlisted at 17 (my Mom had to sign my papers) and went to boot camp at 17. I turned 18 about halfway through and before I graduated I got a nastygram from the selective service for failing to register.
I would imagine that in the 40s it was phenomenally easy to fake a birth certificate, since they were often handwritten or typed. Even my birth certificate from the 60s was not accepted by Uncle Sam in the 80s and I had to get a new “official” one generated.
Yup, when I got my first military dependent ID card, I was living on a Navy base despite the fact that my stepfather was in the Army. Instead of typing my stepfather’s name on my ID card with his Army rank (i.e. “Captain” or “Cpt.”), they made a point of writing it as “O-3 [FirstName] [LastName]” presumably to avoid confusion with the considerably higher rank of Navy Captain (O-6).
The Navy captains and their families lived in fancy single-family homes, whereas we only had a tiny apartment flat (along with all of the Navy lieutenants).
My ex-wife was a Navy nurse. She was once assigned to a Medevac flight with an Air Force nurse. My ex-wife was a Navy lieutenant (O-3). The Air Force nurse was an Air Force captain (O-3). But instead of working with and treating my very-experienced ex-wife as a peer, the Air Force nurse kept ordering my ex-wife around and calling her “lieutenant” in a condescending tone.
For whatever reason (maybe because it was 30 years ago), my ex-wife was wearing her Navy service dress blue uniform with two gold stripes on the sleeves instead of a working uniform with metal insignia (two silver bars that would have matched the insignia of the Air Force officer).
In any event, my ex-wife finally got fed up and told the Air Force officer, “You see these two stripes? I’m a Navy full lieutenant*—the same rank as you, sister. Stop ordering me around!”
*As opposed to a Navy Lieutenant Junior Grade (LTJG), which is an O-2.
I was USAF and dealt a lot with Army, a bit with USMC and only slightly with Navy. So my own experience had very little opportunity for rank terminology shenanigans.
If someone was in a job or at a base or ship where other services simply were never encountered, it’d be real easy for an e.g. USAF person to be unable to decipher Navy ranks or vice versa.
I went to Defense Language Institute out of boot camp, so we were very exposed to Army, Air Force and Marines from the get-go. Apart from having to actually think about what to address someone as, the insignia are the same across services (i.e. ENS wears the same insignia as 2LT, CAPT wears the same insignia as COL). We were so exposed to other services that we got good at identifying the confusing ones early, so it was never really an issue. I can see other services being confused about Navy dress uniforms, but as a sailor it was pretty easy.
It did not take long for me, a USAF officer on joint assignment w the Army, to learn Army enlisted ranks equally as well as USAF. USMC took a bit longer, especially at the higher levels. Mostly due to only occasional, not daily, exposure.
And of course officer ranks of those three are identical. Both in name & symbology.
The Navy (& Coast Guard) were the exceptions.
Officers were easy (ier), mostly because the symbology was the same & they were most of the folks I dealt with. Decoding the sleeves of USN / USCG enlisted mostly baffled me. Mo’ is bettah’ is about as far as I got.
My bro the USN officer / pilot had the opposite problem.
The system was changed in December, 1942 so that voluntary enlistments were not allowed. There were ways to ask that your name be put at the top of the draft list but I don’t know anything about that.
A lot of people walked into recruitment centers on the wake of Pearl Harbor, and through the following year. There are many stories of people lying about their age and getting accepted, as well as other stories about parents signing forms for their kids saying they were old enough.
As navy enlisted I had the same problem with all those air force sergeants and came to the same conclusion. This is why when in a conversation with the other services, if rank comes up we would mostly use the E- (or rarely) O- number in addition to or in place of the rank’s name.
When at a tenant command on an army base, eating across from a buck sergeant he asked how he could tell a chief petty officer from an navy officer since both usually wore khakis instead of dress uniforms. I told him the collar insignia would be an anchor instead of the officer’s insignia he was already used to.
At that same command I once ran into a woman 2nd lieutenant in a pastel green double-knit dress. I very nearly missed her collar insignia and saluted her at the last possible instant although since she was uncovered I technically didn’t have to. It must have been some sort of experimental uniform because I never saw anything like it again.
That 2Lt’s weird uniform was probably the maternity dress. USAF had a similar design in blue. An odd smock-like thing, it was built roomy and was adjustable so a woman could wear one issue in one size throughout the course of a pregnancy.
Some women were real eager to get officially labeled as pregnant right away; get the uniform, get the limited duty, and get the congrats and consideration due any impending mom. Others tried their damnedest to go as far as they could into their 9 months with no smock, no consideration, just being gritty git shit done servicemembers.
Her being uncovered (might have) relieved her of having to return the hand-salute. But then again, other services (not the Navy or, I think, USMC) do salute uncovered.
But regardless, a salute is to be rendered to a superior officer regardless of the status of their uniform, even if they are in civilian attire.
See, for example:
In Civilian Clothes
If you are in uniform and recognize an officer in civilian clothes, you should initiate the proper greeting and salute. In time of war, however, an officer not in uniform may be deliberately avoiding disclosure of his/her identity, so you should be cautious in following the normal peacetime rule.
I was once very confused as an NROTC midshipman, but at a military school that generally followed the Army rule, when coming upon one of our marine officer instructors as he was in his regular uniform, but I was (uncovered) in the PT uniform of our school. But with the twist that I’d wear the same uniform to, for example, an NROTC PT function. Do I salute, or not?
Did not figure it out in time, and after some awkwardness he indicated that, at minimum, salute or no, I should have offered the appropriate greeting of the day (“Good morning, sir”) as we encountered each other.
