Posted by TTN
You've told us that NCO pilots had no problem being accepted as equals by
their commissioned opposite numbers, but what about by other NCOs in ground trades? In Len Deighton's excellent and well-researched book Bomber there is mention of resentment among long-serving NCOs who
had worked their way up through the ranks seeing the Sergeants' Mess suddenly filled with 19 year old boys with brand new stripes on their arms. Did you experience any of this?
In later years this was also a cause for annoyance amongst ground crew. In IIRC, the late 1960´s, 3 year apprentices from Halton etc., were graduating as Cpl´s promoted automatically to Sgt. after a year in the real world. As 20 y/o´s they were joining units with long serving SNCO´s of many years experience.