NAVY TITLES

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 156, 30 December 1944, Page 8

NAVY TITLES

CHANGES ANNOUNCED

SIGNALS AND ACCOUNTS i Changes in the titles of signal officers and of the Accountant Branch and its officers of the Royal Navy have been decided upon by the Admiralty and consequently are being made in the Royal New Zealand Navy. The title of signal officer is to be altered to signal communication officer and lieutenant-commanders and lieutenants who have specialised in signals will in future be distinguished by the suffix (C).instead of (S). The officers and ratings of the visual signal and wireless telegraphy categories will be known collectively as the Communications Branch, but individually and for common usage the traditional titles of signal officer, signal ratings, and telegraphist ratings will be retained. The Admiralty considers that the present titles of the Accountant Branch and of officers composing that branch of the Royal Navy are no longer sufficiently descriptive of the duties of the branch and that their significance, though, well understood in the Navy, is often not understood elsewhere. It therefore has been decided that the branch will in future be known as the Supply and Secretariat Branch and that the word "paymaster" in the ranktitles of officers will be abolished arid replaced by the suffix (S) after the rank of the officers. Thus officers will no longer be known as paymastercommander or paymaster-lieutenants, but as commander (S) or lieutenant (S). Officers of the branch generally will be referred to as supply officers. WIDE RANGE OF DUTIES. The reason for this change is that the branch is responsible for a* great many more aspects of naval administration than are connoted by the words "accountant" and "paymaster." The branch deals with the whole range of naval stores, including those of the Fleet Air Arm, messing and clothing of men.as well as secretarial duties on the staffs of flag officers and captains of ships and establishments, in addition to pay accounting; in fact, pay now represents only about oneseventh of the duties of the branch. The changes are being promulgated in Admiralty Fleet Orders. Their adoption in the Royal New Zealand Navy has been approved, and they are being put into force forthwith.