From the establishment of Warrant Officers in the Army Mine Planter Service through the expansion of Warrant Officers into clerical, administrative, and bandleading positions in 1920 up until the eve of U.S. entry into World War II, the position of Warrant Officer was seen more as a duty assignment than a rank. Warrant Officers served in a single pay grade until 1941, when legislation was passed authorizing pay rates for Warrant Officers Junior Grade and Chief Warrant Officers. But it was not until 1941 that the War Department clearly and explicitly stated the Warrant Officer’s rank as being above all enlisted personnel and immediately below all commissioned officers.
More Warrant Officer 1 Rank InsigniaPre-2004 Warrant Officer Branch ItemsThe issue of just how much command authority a Warrant Officer could exercise was addressed in that same legislation, which approached the issue in something of an ad hoc manner, or a “if it walks and talks like a duck” fashion. Namely, the law stated that Warrant Officers could be assigned by the Secretary of the Army to any duty—and when performance of that duty required actions normally restricted to a Commissioned Officer, then the Warrant Officer would also have the authority to carry out those same actions. It also explicitly stated that Warrant Officers who were serving as assistant adjutants at any command would have the power to administer oaths.
President Roosevelt’s Executive Order 8938 attempted to clarify the issue further by specifying that when whenever a Warrant Officer was assigned certain types of duties normally carried out by Commissioned Officers, the Warrant Officers would be vested with the powers Commissioned Officers exercised to carry those duties—sort of a “Necessary and Proper” clause for this in-between rank. The Order listed six types of these duties: command stations, units, or detachments; disbursement and administration of funds; issuance of travel orders, bills of lading, and transportation requests; receipt and accountability for administration of property; certification and verification of official papers; performance of similar routine administrative duties.
Although this Order did give Warrant Officer authority to act as Commissioned Officers in a vast array of functions, the fact that Warrant Officers in the Army were not Commissioned like their counterparts in the Navy and Marine Corps still left a lingering question as to just what their command status really was. This ended with the passage of the National Defense Act of 1986, which mandated that all Chief Warrant Officers in grades CW2 to CW4 be commissioned just like regular officers; this was expanded to include CW5 when that grade was added in 1991.