The three-bladed propeller that serves as the insignia for Engineering Technicians was first used for Warrant Officers in the United States Navy over a century ago—and the Sailors who wore it were not known as Engineering Technicians.
With the outbreak of the Spanish-American War in 1898, the United States Navy appointed seventeen machinists as Warrant Officers. A gold propeller with four blades was chosen as a temporary “corps device” for these “Warrant Machinists,” but a year later the Navy made this emblem permanent. In 1900, a change in uniform regulations specified the corps device for Machinists would be a gold, three-bladed propeller with one propeller pointed upward.
The appellation “Warrant Machinists” was shortened to simply “Machinists” in 1909; along with the name change, Machinists were now eligible to be promoted to “Commissioned Chief Machinists” after six years from the time they received their warrant. These Chief Machinists also wore a three-bladed propeller in the same manner as earlier specified, but theirs were silver, whereas regular Machinists wore the gold propeller. Both Machinists and Chief Machinists were deemed line officers and consequently wore a star on their sleeves.
A change to regulation in 1913 meant that all warrant officers of the line (chief and standard) would wear a star of the line, but Chief Warrant Officers’ would be gold and Warrant Officers would wear silver. But since change is the only constant in the Navy, this too was altered in 1922, when new uniform regulations specified that Chief Machinists and Machinists alike would wear the same corps device: a three-bladed, gold-embroidered propeller with one blade pointed up to be worn on the sleeves of blue service coats and frocks and on the shoulder straps employed on white service coats and overcoats.
Today, there are no Chief Warrant Officers (CWO) serving as Machinists, thanks to an overhaul of the officer designators used for CWOs and Limited Duty Officers (LDO) that led to the CWO designator 713x, Surface Engineering Technician—but the three-bladed propeller lives on as the insignia for Sailors serving in the Machinist’s Mate (MM) rating.
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