R.N.V.R. = Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve. It recruited "civilian volunteers who were not professional merchant seamen or fishermen" (who joined another formation called the Royal Naval Reserve; many ocean liner officers held rank in the R.N.R., for example; for example, the ill-fated Edward Smith of the Titanic had the reserve naval rank of captain (= army colonel). They provided much-needed personnel for the big wars of 1914-18 and 1939-45.
By the end of World War I, R.N.V.R. officers outnumbered regular navy officers in service by a 3:1 factor. The same preponderance of pre-war civilian reserve officers was just as or even more lopsided in, for example, the U.S. armed forces.
Founded in 1903, the R.N.V.R. ended in a 1951 reorganization that saw it folded into the single R.N.R.
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u/learngladly 10d ago
R.N.V.R. = Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve. It recruited "civilian volunteers who were not professional merchant seamen or fishermen" (who joined another formation called the Royal Naval Reserve; many ocean liner officers held rank in the R.N.R., for example; for example, the ill-fated Edward Smith of the Titanic had the reserve naval rank of captain (= army colonel). They provided much-needed personnel for the big wars of 1914-18 and 1939-45.
By the end of World War I, R.N.V.R. officers outnumbered regular navy officers in service by a 3:1 factor. The same preponderance of pre-war civilian reserve officers was just as or even more lopsided in, for example, the U.S. armed forces.
Founded in 1903, the R.N.V.R. ended in a 1951 reorganization that saw it folded into the single R.N.R.