Anything with “watch officer” (outside of a unit) is usually going to involve a 24/7 operations center of some kind, whether operational, intelligence, meteorological, communications, command, joint, etc. Those positions can be staffed by either officers or enlisted. The higher you go on the food chain of commands and closer to the Service Chief or Joint Chiefs level, the more senior in rank the watch officers will be. It is a billet, not an officer warfare community, but a duty assignment where you work shift work in one of these centers.
Commander, Pacific Fleet (COMPACFLT) will have a 24/7 Fleet Operations Center (or whatever the current name is). There will be a senior officer running it, and several watch officers representative of various skill sets will be part of an officer-enlisted watch team. “Information” implies info/intel/cyber responsibilities. Reports on sightings of, say, a Russian ice-breaker leaving port unexpectedly and all kinds of information flows toward the Fleet center from subordinate commands and units. The appropriate watch officer analyzes the report, passes it to the center watch officer, makes recommendations, takes other appropriate actions according to existing policy and guidelines. The info may continue to flow upward if appropriate, or not.
As a CO, I had occasion to send “unit sitrep” and OPREP-3 Navy blue messages, when certain incidents, accidents or deaths happened. They went, per guiding Navy instructions, to certain action and info addees. Somewhere far above me, in multiple command centers, watch officers were reading my reports. It’s likely a mid-grade or senior enlisted person saw it first, or possibly a junior officer, and the information started being looked at, digested and shared after that.
If you Google “Fleet Information Watch Officer job opportunities,” you’ll see everything from active duty training opportunities offered to Reserve Officers to come back on AD for 90 days to bridge a gapped billet at a watch center, or DOD contractors looking to hire departing military to go right back in as contractors into watch centers filling these shift roles.
One of our USNA sponsor alumni daughters is a meteorological officer. She did a tour as a “weather-guesser” watch officer in the Atlantic Fleet command center. Guess who hated hurricane season on the East Coast…
The husband of one of our USNA sponsor alumni was a Navy watch officer in the White House Communications Agency, which had all flavors of watch officers. WHCA does all kinds of stuff, but the comm center is a vital part of it. You might find this interesting:
I hope this gives you some context.
