Becoming a Naval Officer: Entry, Education and Training

Abstract

This quotation from Professor Lambert is almost a leitmotif for this book, describing succinctly the education, training and career management of executive officers up until the early 1930s. It encapsulates the problem that faced the navy throughout its history; it needed a mass of officers who were intelligent and able enough to carry out duties that latterly had become increasingly complex due to rapid technological developments. This required higher levels of intelligence, education and training; but officers often had to obey orders and for the most part only exercise judgement within quite narrow bounds.² However, from this mass of officers whose initiative and originality had been, during their developmental years, restrained even constrained, the navy had to produce a relatively small number of leaders with initiative, the future admirals.

[T]he navy needed a large supply of capable officers for junior command, watch-keeping, managing the men and imposing order. It required relatively few captains to exercise the independent command of ships. Rather than overeducate those who would not rise beyond lieutenant, the navy took in boys, and trained them for this specific rank, relying on chance and opportunity to select those who would become the next generation of leaders.¹