Hullo, time for the Most Retarded Question Ever...

[themeletor]

Major brainfart over here, liek whoah. So, humor me if you please, and...

can a lieutenant have seniority aboard a ship yet still be younger than his junior officer(s)? not saying he's at the top of the ladder, just... a few rungs up. and fragmentationally (oh that is SO a word; shut up) younger than ... the rungs beneath him.

Ee?

Comments

[gryphons-lair.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah. The key is the date you became a lieutenant (or a captain), not how old you were. The British Navy was all about seniority. If you had more years than all the other lieuts, you were First, automatically.

So a 25 year old who'd passed his exams at 18 (the youngest most of them could manage it, since you needed to have been at sea 6 years before you could even try) could have seniority over a 30 year old didn't pass his until he was 24.

[meletor-et-al.livejournal.com]

See, that's exactly the answer I was fishing for. And? I so. Knew it. Bah! But thank you, and I think I must've pulled a few too many all-nighters writing and redpenning -- stupid navyboys getting all... drunk and... stupid. Stupid! ...ok let's face it; I'm just a dork. *shrug*

(what I did find, actually, was that the usual rule was that one could not go for examination until nineteen, but, yanno, the 'appears to be' excuse was at times employed if one had friends in high, brocade-y places)