The system of officers' promotion in the Navy differs from that in force in the other Services. All midshipmen reach the rank of sub-lieutenant, but it is possible for some of. them to gain' accelerated promotion by doing well in their examination, and thus reach the rank of lieutenant before their fellows, writes a Naval Correspondent to the "Sunday Observer." All lieutenants are promoted to lieutenant-commander at eight years' seniority; but of that stage automatic promotion is interrupted.
Promotion from lieutenant-commander to commander is by selection; so is promotion from commander to captain. Up to now, however, all captains have been automatically promoted to flag rank, as vacancies occur, when they reach the top of the list, provided they have fulfilled certain qualifying conditions of employment and sea time. This system of promoting captain to rear-admiral has been in force in the Navy for some 200 years.
The age at which rear-admirals reach that rank under this system depends upon the flow of promotion throughout the service. That flow, of. course, varies from time to time. When the Navy is expanding, promotion is rapid, and the age of each rank tends to fall; when it is in process of reduction, however, there are fewer vacancies in the higher ranks. Officers have to wait longer for promotion, and the age tends to rise. The long period of contraction through which the Navy passed in the years between 1919 and 1937 had had its effect in this direction, The flow of promotion was slowed down so that at the outbreak of war most rear-admirals were over the age of 50 by the time they reached that rank. This age is universally agreed to be too high. The Admiralty, however, have not been helpless in this matter, though the old rule remained in force. It has always been open to them to make what have been known as "acting" promotions, whereby an officer in any rank is directed to assume acting rank of a higher grade.
Sir Reginald Tyrwhitt, though still on the captains' list, was an acting rear-admiral for a great part of the last war. The two Commanders-in-Chief of the Home and Mediterranean Fleets are both on the list of vice-admirals, but both hold the acting rank of admiral. It is thus possible for the Admiralty, while retaining the Tule that promotions from captain to rear-admiral are made by seniority, to exercise selection in cases where it is clearly necessary in the national interest to do so.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.