From where I sit
The RAAF after the war decided that crewman such as Gunners, flight engineers etc would not be able to progress past WO and remain in their mustering. The strange thing is this happened when our chief was a private who worked his way up in the ranks. Even though all aircrew positions could and were officers.
Those who did not like this move were invited to move on. We could debate the merits of this change, what it did do was deprive the RAAF of some really good people who had outstanding leadership values.
If you were General duties such as pilots or navigators then you again were invited to become an officer and if no invitation was extended then in due course you were discharged.
It seemed to me that it was a deliberate move to keep what could be top jobs for the officers.
When the RAAF started operating the C130 a problem arrived in that the flight engineers who had served on Liberators and Catalinas continued to wear their WW2 brevet but those who were newly trained recieved nothing. Many of the Loadmasters were ex WW2 signals people who continued to wear their old bevets which had nothing to do with their current role. They did not hang around long and by 1965 all had gone.
There was a need to convert the FE badge to Queens crown and to develope
the loadmaster brevet, all seemed to take a long time and they were eventually issued I believe in 1964. However neither of these positions were general duties which stopped promotion past WO.
So out of 34 crews that the RAAF had we only were established for two WO's and two F/SGT which certainly cut back career prospects.
It was only in the late 70's that FE and LM became a proper mustering and I believe that in the 80's one could be promoted up to WO.
So from 1969 through to the 80's hundreds of men left, what a waste of talent and training.
There are people from these two groups who have been given officer status but they have to come off flying and find another path to follow.
During WW2 we had an equally stupid situation where and aircraft could be commanded by a LAC and the gunner was a Flt/Lt.
Looking at the RAF today whilst not as restrictive as the RAAF it is still very hard for NCO's to climb the ranks.
Makes me sad to see that good people are being held back
Regards
Col