G'day Barry,
looks like there might be a difference between Australian and British Officer Entry Criteria. Our most famous and first WW1 VC winner Albert Jacka was promted from Private to Captain, and was originally an Electrician prior to the War. Importantly he wasn't alone in rising from a private to a senior Officer
Apparantly He should have been awarded another VC and promoted again but the war ended too early for him, his citations just go on and on.....!
I have lifted some info about him and posted it here as an example
he received the Victoria Cross, the first to be awarded to the A.I.F. in WW1.
Instantly Jacka became a national hero. He received the £5,00 and gold watch that the prominent Melbourne business and sporting identity John Wren had promised to the first VC winner. His image was used on recruiting posters and magazine covers.
On 28 August 1915 he was promoted corporal, then rose quickly, becoming a company sergeant major in mid-November, a few weeks before Anzac was evacuated. Back in Egypt he passed through officer training school with high marks and on 29 April 1916 was commissioned second lieutenant.
The 14th Battalion was shipped to France early in June. Jacka's platoon moved into the line near Pozieres on the night of 6-7 August and, as dawn broke, German troops overran a part of the line. Jacka had just completed a reconnaissance and had gone to his dug-out when two Germans appeared at its entrance and rolled a bomb down the doorway, killing two men. Jacka charged up the dug-out steps, firing as he moved, and came upon a large number of the enemy rounding up some 40 Australians as prisoners.
He rallied his platoon and charged at the enemy, some of whom immediately threw down their rifles. Furious hand-to-hand fighting erupted as the prisoners turned on their captors. Fifty Germans were captured and the line was retaken. Jacka was awarded a Military Cross for his gallantry.
C.E. W. Bean described the counter-attack 'as the most dramatic and effective act of individual audacity in the history of the A.I.F.' The entire platoon was wounded, Jacka seriously in the neck and shoulder; he was sent to a London hospital. On 8 September London newspapers carried reports of his death but Bert Jacka was far from done for. He had been promoted lieutenant on 18 August, rejoined his unit in November and was promoted captain on 15 March 1917 and appointed the 14th Battalion's intelligence officer.
Early in 1917 the Germans had retired to the Hindenburg Line and on 8 April Jacka led a night reconnaissance party into no man's land near Bullecourt to inspect enemy defences before an allied attack against the new German line. He penetrated the wire at two places, reported back, then went out again to supervise the laying of tapes to guide the infantry. The work was virtually finished when two Germans loomed up. Realizing that they would see the tapes, Jacka knew that they must be captured. He pulled his pistol; it misfired, so he rushed on and captured them by hand. Jacka's quick thinking had saved the Anzac units from discovery and probable disastrous bombardment; for this action he was awarded a Bar to his Military Cross.
