Titles and Acronyms old and new
 

Hi all,

Once again I've come across another interminable service Acronym. STO, the example is an RAF Wing Commander accompanying the Geilenkirchen CO, greeting 92 Sqn pilots on arrival, December 1965.

FB

Senior Technical Officer ?

Seems rather short to be interminable :bored:

In this day and age the STO would probably translate to "Assistant Deputy Chief of Staff Logistics" ie ADCSL or somesuch!
Old Duffer

When one was in Whitehall some years ago, one had many dealings with PSO to ACAS (sorry! Personal Staff Officer to the Assistant Chief of Air Staff).

Borrowing a phrase from Flanders and Swann (Eating People is Wrong) I always called him "Chief Assistant to the Assistant Chief". Don't think he was amused........

I have a friend who was an MSO. Medical Services Officer, aka Pox Doctor's Clerk.

Ninthace
Presumably an Australian?

When I was in the navy I met someone who arranged (made it up?) his job title to be

electrical installation engineering information officer.

so he could say in meetings I’m eieio 😎

Well in a quasi-military context (the Maquis) ,in the books I am reading, it stands for Service de Travail Obligatoire (Forced Labour). Which I am guessing is not appropriate here!

Mogwi senior used to do his RNR annual training interpreting aerial photos at JHQ Rheindahlen many decades ago; he called himself SNOG (Senior Naval Officer (Germany)).

Very rare beasts at JHQ ............... the sight of a RN officer made the more uncouth people stop and stare. I personally never had dealings with one in a total of about 13 years in RAFG, all but three at JHQ,

STO was Survival to Operate … at least it was in the 90s when I was Wg Cdr STO in the Deputy Directorate of War Plans and Policy (WPP) in the Air Force Department (AFD) at the Ministry of Defence (MOD).

Then the Warsaw Pact (WP) and Soviet Union collapsed, and we were disestablished with on-going work passed to Strike Command (STC) where I suspect it largely withered on the vine.

Falklands 1983 had the SS Rangatira moored in Stanley harbour for accommodation purposes, with a Naval Lt as the military “OC”. We sailed down on the SS Uganda together, and as the Senior Naval Officer on the Rangatira we RAF types awarded him the informal title of SNOTRAG.

No, on more formal occasions I referred to him as the Pox Doctor's Quill Bearer. Someone had to keep the medics paperwork straight and for some reason there was not only an RAF trade for it but they even had their own officer corps. I used to wind him up further by using my academic title. We are still mates to this day, so he took it well.

I recall many years ago at RAF Leconfield the Senior Medical Officer (SMO)phoning into the station and asking to be put through to sick quarters only to be told by the operator (no direct dial in those days) that it was now the Regional Medical Centre. She then enquired who she should say was calling and the SMO responded said that he supposed they better say it was the Senior Regional Medical Officer

When I had dealings with the R.N. I was told of an officer who was given the task of trying to persuade ratings to sign on again when thir time was up.
He declared his job title to be"re-employment of manpower for further term" ROMFT for short.
To every matelot ROMFT stood for " Roll on my F-ing Time"

I think the navy had Supply and Transport Officers, but they put (N) at the end.

Interminable Sir because I couldn't put together an answer which I recognised, and I spent a long time trying to find the answer. Therefore, to me it was a conundrum!:)

FB

That's what I thought.

FB

Mogwi
In days of yore in Berlin at 26SU we had 2 RN CSOs (something to do with comms), one at Gatow and the other on Teufelsburg, who were known, as the only RN staff in Berlin, as SNOG and SNOT......

Re EIEIO

At LATCC the above acronym stood for the External Interference Engineering Investigations Officer.