NCO (non commissioned officer). In 1642 Sgt Nehemiah Wharton referred to his regiment's officers and sergeants collectively as ‘we officers’. However, as military ranks formalized in the 17th century a clear distinction developed between ‘commission-officers’ who held a commission, increasingly granted by the monarch, and NCOs, who did not. Despite historical evolution, and differences between and within armies, the distinction survives to this day. Petty officers in navies have many of the characteristics of NCOs.
For much of history NCO rank stemmed from a lesser authority than that of commissioned officers: NCOs were appointed and promoted by their colonel. Their rank was more fragile than that of commissioned officers, and they might lose it with fewer legal niceties. NCOs were promoted from the ranks and worked their way steadily upwards. All too often a barrier separated them from commissioned rank, and the ambitious NCO has proved a source of political as well as military tension, most notably in the French army.
NCOs received better pay and allowances than private soldiers. Though national customs varied, sergeants messed separately from the men—and corporals often had a special ‘bunk’ with more privacy than the barrack-room—enhancing their status. In many armies the distinction between officers and NCOs was social as well as functional. NCOs were responsible for minor administration, drill, and discipline, and were not expected to exercise command on anything but a small scale. Though ‘gentleman rankers’ were never uncommon—François de Chevert in the French army, Robertson in the British, and Courtney Hodges in the American all began as privates—NCOs in general were not reckoned gentlemen. The fortune of war often demolished such distinctions, and NCOs not infrequently took command when all their officers had fallen.
The British army, and many others influenced by it, begins its NCOs with lance-corporal and corporal. The term corporal probably derives from the Latin corpus, for body (of troops): in 1598 the corporal was described as ‘a degree in dignitie above the private soldier’. The expression lance-corporal—originally lancia spezzada, broken lance, in Italian, leading to the obsolete lancepesad, dates from the late Middle Ages, when a cavalryman who had lost his horse and served on foot would retain higher status than infantry privates. Equivalent ranks in the Royal Artillery are lance-bombardier and bombardier, harking back to the ancient rank of bombardier, a species of trained artilleryman. They are junior NCOs, distinct from senior NCOs, sergeants, and above. The caporal in the French army and the gefreiter in the German were not regarded as NCOs proper but as senior soldiers.
The term sergeant derives from the Latin serviens (servant) and in the Middle Ages described a heavy horseman below knightly status. In 1813 the British army introduced the rank of colour sergeant to reward sergeants of good standing, and for the next century the colour sergeant was the senior non-commissioned member of a British infantry company, equivalent to the US army's first sergeant. Sergeants on the staff of a battalion were termed staff sergeants, and QM sergeants (both company and regimental) were responsible for stores and equipment. The British Household Cavalry does not use the rank of sergeant, but substitutes the ancient term Corporal of Horse.
The senior non-commissioned member of a British unit is its regimental sergeant major (RSM). This began as an NCO rank, but attained warrant officer status in the 19th century. When British infantry battalions were restructured from eight companies to four in 1913 the rank of company sergeant major (CSM) was created. The colour sergeant then became the second senior member of his company, carrying out the role of company QM sergeant (CQMS). With the creation of the rank of CSM, RSMs became Warrant Officers Class 1 and CSMs Warrant Officers Class 2.
The German army traditionally distinguished between Unteroffiziere ohne Portepee (NCOs without a sword knot) and Unteroffiziere mit Portepee (NCOs with a sword knot). The former, corporals and sergeants, roughly equated to British NCOs, whereas the latter, who, in both world wars, might command platoons or their equivalents, were closer to British warrant officers.
The effectiveness of many great armies of history has depended heavily upon their NCOs, who drilled and trained the men and steadied their ranks on the day of battle. They were not always popular: an 18th-century Prussian soldier compared his NCOs to oriental eunuchs, polite to their superiors but taking out their frustrations on their subordinates. Yet Kipling was not far wrong when he wrote: ‘The backbone of the army is the Non-Commissioned man.’
— Richard Holmes
