This photograph of J.E.A. Wey displays shoulder boards which consist of a large eight-pointed star with a cross sword & baton and an eagle which reveal his rank to be that of a rear admiral in the old style used by the British Royal Navy, with the eagle replacing the royal cypher.
But for me the photograph recalled the often-fraught history of distinguishing the ranks worn respectively by rear admirals and commodores.
At one point I suspected that his shoulder board could have represented a 1960s era Nigerian translation of the rank of a Royal Navy commodore. And if so, that the picture library where I discovered it would have been wrong about the year in which the photograph of taken because Wey had been a commodore up to June 1967.
This confusion between the shoulder boards of rear admiral and commodore stems from the history of some naval captains been appointed as commodores. The first issue to clear up is that the designation of commodore was in fact not a rank but an appointment of a senior captain who exercised a high level of responsibility. This covered roles at sea such as serving as the commander of a squadron of ships or as the head of major shore establishments including naval bases.
The appointment was essentially temporary although it often formed a crucial stepping stone for an officer enroute to becoming a rear admiral. Indeed, a commodore (First Class) was entitled to wear the rank stripes of a rear admiral on the lower sleeves of his reefer jacket. However, when wearing either a great coat or the all-white service dress with a short, stand-up collar, commodores of the 1st class had a distinct set of shoulder boards (also known as shoulder straps) which consisted of a large anchor, two small eight-pointed stars arranged horizontally and royal cypher.
This was depicted in the 1956 movie The Battle of the River Plate in which the figure of Commodore Henry Harwood, the commander of the South Atlantic Squadron was portrayed by the actor Anthony Quayle.
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But the mild confusion of the past has intensified in contemporary times.
In 1997, commodore became a substantive rank in the Royal Navy -equivalent to that of an army brigadier. They also inherited the shoulder boards, once worn by rear admirals, that is, the large eight-pointed star, cross sword & baton and royal cypher. Thus, when the old-style rear admirals shoulder boards are sold to collectors, a good many vendors often describe them as ones worn by commodores.
It means that images or depictions of rear admirals in the past may also be misunderstood. An example of this can be found in the James Bond movie You Only Live Twice which was released in 1967. Ian Fleming, the author of the novel upon which the film was based, revealed ‘M’, the fictional head of the British Secret Service, to be a retired vice admiral named Sir Miles Messervy ('M'). But in the movie the actor Bernard Lee who portrays Messervy wears the old-style Rear Admiral's shoulder boards. Today, a Royal Navy rear admiral’s shoulder boards consist of two eight-pointed stars arranged vertically, a crossed sword & baton and royal cypher.
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It should be noted that the "confusion" over the Rear Admiral and Commodore rank has its own story in the United States.
Originally a title granted by the Secretary of the Navy to naval captains who as in the case of the Royal Navy were granted special responsibilities such as the command of a naval squadron, or as in the case of the famous Matthew C. Perry, the commandant of a navy yard, the U.S. Navy in 1982 decided to create the substantive one-star rank of commodore-admiral. This was renamed “commodore” until the rank of rear-admiral (Lower Half) was established in 1985. It retained its one-star status in contrast to the two-star status of rear admiral (Upper Half).
The reformation of ranks was largely due to complaints made by disgruntled officers from the other branches of the U.S. armed forces. For instance, army brigadier-generals when embarked on joint operations often perceived themselves as being superior in rank to rear admirals -despite their two-star status- because they were originally promoted from the rank of captain, a senior rank but one not that of a flag officer.
Meanwhile in Britain, it was discovered that even after the transforming of commodore from an appointment to a substantive rank, senior Royal Navy captains of six years seniority were being paid the same salary as British Army Brigadiers and Royal Air Force air commodores. But as was the case with the United States military, these issues have been sorted out to quell inter-service grievances, as well as to establish uniformity with other militaries belonging to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.
And as is the case with the Royal Navy, the contemporary Nigerian Navy rear admiral does not wear the shoulder boards worn by Joseph Wey in 1968. Today they consist of two small six-pointed stars arranged horizontally, a crossed sword & baton and an eagle. In contrast, the board straps of a commodore display a small six-pointed star, an anchor and an eagle.
Joseph Wey was also a member of the Supreme Military Council and later became the Chief of Staff Supreme Headquarters. He was compulsorily retired in July 1975 after the coup which overthrew General Yakubu Gowon and brought Brigadier Murtala Muhammed to power. His final rank was Vice Admiral.
© Adeyinka Makinde (2026).
Adeyinka Makinde is a writer based in London, England. His late father was a Nigerian Navy officer, and he has presented lectures to naval officers and other officers of the armed forces on the Naval Warfare Course run by the Naval War College Nigeria.
Adeyinka’s article "The Bonny Landing: The anatomy of Black Africa’s first amphibious operation, July to September 1967" was published in the August 2024 edition of The Mariner's Mirror, the international journal of the Society for Nautical Research.
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