JUNIOR SERVICE

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 123, 27 May 1933, Page 13

JUNIOR SERVICE

NAVY'S NEW TITLE

ADMIRALS GOING OUT

PROBLEM OP ARK

Tho ifioyal Navy is familiarly spoken of as "the Senior Service." But it is fast earning tho right to be called, in . a different sense, quite as complimentary, the "Junior Service." For its senior officers now arc strikingly younger than their opposite numbers in tho Army, writes Captain B. 11. Liddell Hart in tho London "Daily Telegraph." | The average age of full admirals is now iive years lower than that of generals. Vice-admirals average four years less than lieutenant-generals. There is as great a gap between the junior rear-admirals and major-generals. The most recently promoted rear-admiral was only 49, -while the most recently promoted major-general was 54. Several have been promoted during the past year at 56 and 57. Soldiers everywhere are discussing. the contrast between the juniority of the "Senior Service" and the seniority of the "Junior Service." They pay increasingly vocal tribute to the way admirals have been retiring to give their juniors a chance, by helping to clear out the congested channels of promotion. They remark the fact that the senior officers of the Navy, have now been giving this .example of self-abnega-tion for a number of years, tho senior officers of tho Army have shown no sign yet of following suit. ADMIRALS' SACRIFICES. Particular comment is made on the early age at which the former have given up their prospects of further employment. Last yoar Sir Michael, Hodges, Sir David Anderson, and Sir Bertram, Thesiger, all.of them full admirals, retired at only 57. In contrast, there are generals of 65 and 64 still in employment. But soldiers' growing feeling of con-1 cern and. complaint is not directed merely to the contrast between the generals and the admirals in making a voluntary' gesture-, of eelf-sacrifice for the sake of young men and the country's interests. The question is asked ■why the heads of the Army have failed to make the necessary changes in the system which -would ensure promotion at a more effective a ( ge. It, js nearly seven years since the Military Secretary's branch carried out a comprehensive survey of the records of officers, and established data which made possible a real speeding up in promotion. But the measures to implement this reform have been tardy. Their inadequacy to catch up with, the need is revealed in the present rising age-level of the' generals' list. 1 ARMY DISCONTENT. The younger soldiers —if colonels of over 50 and majors well into the 40's can be termed young—are naturally becoming more and more depressed at the prospect. They are old enough to be conscious that they are not as young as they were, and to realise that they may-not.be equal to opportunity when it belatedly arrives. • Their depression is shared by their own juniors. It also reacts' on •. the youths who are contemplating an Army career. Many of the majors and colonels who. see their own prospects growing, dim aro old enough to have sons of "Sandhurst" age. And they are naturally reluctant, whatever their love of the Service, to let their boys be "let in" for a similar.unjustified fate. Nothing would help more to-improve the flow of officer-cadets for Sandhurst than encouraging evidence of an energetic effort by the "War Office to clear the congestion at the other end of the promotion channel. ,-' ■ One open indication of the present state of feeling is provided by an article written by a bold if truthful subaltern in the current "Army Quarterly." ' "Whenever two or more officers gather together, whether it'bo in a mess, a club, or elsewhere, the conversa. tion sooner or lator> will turn into discussion on the vexed question of pro.motion. More often than not, the comments thereon are bitter in/the extreme. The present system of promotion is assailed on the three grounds that it is slow,; uneven, and uncertain." THE TEST OF WAR. It is a grave mistake, unfair to the country as well as officers, to allow such a condition to persist Until its dangers are revealed under the test of war, whether a large campaign or a colonial expedition. Mobile warfare requires comparatively young men for leading not only battalions, but divisions. Older men have not the physical activity and endurance under hardship, even if they keep their minds sufficiently young and elastic. ' Mobile war on land means a far more strenuous test than war at sea for the higher commander. An admiral is carried about in relative comfort in his flagship, and has a better chance of husbanding his strength, than a general who drives far and wide over bad roads in all weathers, often quitting his ear to make his way on foot into tho fighting line, if he is to see things for himself—as he should. It ,is folly to.;judge, the conditions of generalship' by the quiet and stable conaitions of trench warfare in 1914-1918. Even if. the.general of .the future goes to war 5n a tank, it will.be a much more arduous trial than is suffered by the admiral in a great battleship. Yet today the average age of the generals now employed is 63, while that j of the admirals is dnW SS. And the lieutenant-generals average SS, compared With the 54 of vice-admirals. By any realistic standard the generals should bs as much younger than the admirals as they aro now older.