"Brevets in WWII?" Topic

Reading a book on the Italian campaign and on a couple of occasions it mentions generals either having or getting busted to a lower rank.
Was that a thing in WWII?
I knew it happened a lot pre-WWI (General Custer being a Lt Col for example) – but hadn't heard about it in WWII before.

I don't understand what you are asking. Reduction in a permanent rank to a lesser permanent rank, or a reduction from their brevet to their permanent rank, or something else?

Sorry
Reduced from general "to permanent rank" of colonel was one example. Which sounded like a brevet to me, though the author never used that word.

At the time there were "two" armies -- the Regular Army (RA) and the Army of the United States (AUS). An officer could hold rank in both "armies" with his RA rank being less than his AUS rank. When senior officers were "reduced" in rank that normally meant that they went from a higher AUS rank to the lower RA rank. This was not the same as a brevet rank in the 19th century since RA officers holding a higher AUS rank also got paid at the AUS rank level.

When I was commissioned in the Regular Army in 1973, I held both RA and AUS ranks and continued to do so until I retired. That dual distinction was done away with sometime in the later 1990s, I think.

Jim

During WWII, the rapid expansion of the US military necessitated the rapid promotion of officers to comparatively lofty heights to staff and command the large expeditionary forces.

Officers sent overseas often had a permanent rank and a "theater rank." The theater rank might be several grades higher than their permanent rank. If, for whatever reason, someone were sent back to the US, their theater rank was suspended. They were not demoted, per se. They lost their theater rank, and resumed their permanent rank.

Jim
When I was in the USAR in the mid-80s, there was some talk about the different commissions between:
USMA
ROTC (me)
California Military Academy

With USMA & ROTC being "Federal Commissions" & CMA being a "State Commission" (although I knew a couple of CMA grads who were officers in USAR not CNG).

I never bothered to find out what the exact difference was though.