Famous Reservists

A thread that might serve as inspiration (and something seriously lacking on the RN website) would be a roll call of famous and/or inspirational Reservists and whose ranks you'll be joining.

As thread creator, I'm going to nominate the first as Charles Herbert Lightoller DSC & Bar, RD, RNR

Better known for his stint as Second Officer onboard RMS Titanic, it's not as well known that he also had a period of distinguished service as an RNR Officer, finishing as Cdr RNR (Wikipedia can sum his service up better than I can).
Not only this, he also assisted in the Dunkirk evacuation, receiving a Mention in Dispatches.

Completely found this out by accident, but certainly worthy of someone of being looked up to by anyone joining the Regulars, never mind the Reserves.

 

Richard Barker, newsreader etc. also wrote the biography of "The Terror of Tobermory", Vice-Admiral Sir Gilbert "Monkey" Stephenson KBE, CB, CMG. Stevenson set up and ran the WWII version of FOST.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_Mordaunt

Bit on the chunky side but probably game for a laugh and well worth a squirt!

 

I would like to add Arthur Walderne St. Clair Tisdall VC to your famous Reservists list.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Walderne_St_Clair_Tisdall

Sweetpea.

 

Ian Fleming. James Bond Author.

 

David Braine, BBC South West weather presenter.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/spotlight/content/articles/2007/01/11/david_braine_feature.shtml

 

If we're including wartime, it has to be submariners

Lieutenant Ian Edward FRASER VC. DSC. RNR of submarine XE-3
and Lt Donald CAMERON VC RNR of submarine X-6

 

I was the JO detailed off to talk to her when she rocked up for a recruiting evening (not that I minded) and I've worked with her a few times since. Bright, engaging, good company, and looks as if she's on track to make a decent officer.

(Spoken for, as well, but then so am I)

 

Surprised this bloke hasn't got a mention yet:

"After leaving school, Grylls briefly considered joining the Indian Army and hiked in the Himalayan mountains of Sikkim and West Bengal. Eventually, Grylls joined the Territorial Army and, after passing selection, served as a reservist with the SAS in 21 SAS Regiment (Artists) (Reserve), for three years until 1997.
In 1996, he suffered a freefall parachuting accident in Zambia. His canopy ripped at 4,900 metres (16,000 ft), partially opening, causing him to fall and land on his parachute pack on his back, which partially crushed three vertebrae. Grylls later said: "I should have cut the main parachute and gone to the reserve but thought there was time to resolve the problem". According to his surgeon, Grylls came "within a whisker" of being paralysed for life and at first it was questionable whether he would ever walk again. Grylls spent the next 12 months in and out of military rehabilitation at Headley Court before being discharged from his medical treatment and directing his efforts into trying to get well enough to fulfil his childhood dream of climbing Mount Everest.
In 2004, Grylls was previously awarded the honorary rank of lieutenant commander in the Royal Naval Reserve;and in 2013 he was awarded the honorary rank of lieutenant colonel in the Royal Marines Reserve."

 

Doctor Who. (PATRICK TROUGHTON)

When the Second World War began, he returned home on a Belgian ship which struck
a sea mine and sank off the coast of Great Britain, Troughton escaping in a lifeboat. In
1940, he joined the Royal Navy and was commissioned as a Lieutenant with the R.N.V.R.,
being first employed on East Coast Convoy duty from February to August 1941, and then
with Coastal Forces' Motor Gun Boats based at Great Yarmouth from November 1942 to 1945.
During his service with the M.G.B.'s, he was on one occasion involved in an action against
Kriegsmarine E-boats which resulted in one of the enemy craft being destroyed by ramming,
whilst Troughton's boat and another destroyed two more with their gunfire. His decorations
included the 1939-45 Star, and Atlantic Star, and he was mentioned in dispatches. He used
to wear a tea cosy on his head in cold weather in the North Sea.

 

Perhaps appropriate in the 100th anniversary year of the Gallipoli campaign to mention poet Rupert Brooke, who was in the RNVR. He died in April 1915.

 

The Turkish poet Necmettin Halil Onan wrote these words
about the Gallipoli peninsula:


Stop wayfarer! Unbeknownst to you this ground
You come and tread on, is where an epoch lies;
Bend down and lend your ear, for this silent mound
Is the place where the heart of a nation sighs.
To the left of this deserted shadeless lane
The Anatolian slope now observe you well;
For liberty and honour, it is, in pain,
Where wounded Mehmet laid down his life and fell.
This very mound, when violently shook the land,
When the last bit of earth passed from hand to hand,
And when Mehmet drowned the enemy in flood,
Is the spot where he added his own pure blood.
Think, the consecrated blood and flesh and bone
That make up this mound, is where a whole nation,
After a harsh and pitiless war, alone
Tasted the joy of freedom with elation.

 

Not quite in the Reservist mode, but interesting nevertheless:

Steptoe and Son



Harry H.Corbett enlisted in the Royal Marines during the Second World War, and served in the Home Fleet on the heavy cruiser HMS Devonshire. After VJ-Day in 1945 he was posted
to the Far East, where he was involved in quelling unrest in New Guinea and reportedly
killed two Japanese soldiers there whilst engaged in hand to hand fighting. He was then
posted to Tonga, but deserted and remained in Australia before handing himself in to the
Military Police. His military service left him with a damaged bladder following an infection
and a red mark on his eye caused by a thorn which was not treated until late in his life.

 

Bladder infections? Red marks on eye? 'You dirty old man'....

 

Fogle is the son of British actress Julia Foster and Bruce Fogle. Fogle
became a Midshipman in the Royal Naval Reserve, serving as an officer
on HMS Blazer. Fogle has since become a regular television presenter
for the BBC, hosting Crufts, One Man and His Dog, Countryfile, Country
Tracks, Extreme Dreams With Ben Fogle, Animal Park, Wild on the West
Coast, Wild in Africa and Ben Fogle’s Escape in Time.

 

Talking of Dr Who..... Jon Pertwee was an officer in the Royal Navy, spending some time attached to the highly-secretive Naval Intelligence Division during the Second World War, working alongside future James Bond author Ian Fleming, and reporting directly to Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, and Deputy Prime Minister, Clement Attlee. He was a crew member of HMS Hood and was transferred off the ship for officer training shortly before she was sunk by the German battleship Bismarck, losing all but three men.

Full Circle.....

 

We get Mr Grylls. The US of A get:



Carlos Ray "Chuck" Norris was born on March 10, 1940 in Ryan, Oklahoma. In 1958, after high school, Norris joined the Air Force as an Air Policeman (AP) with the goal of training in the Security Police in preparation for a career in law enforcement.
Norris was sent Osan Air Base, South Korea where he began his training in Tang Soo Do (tangsudo), an interest that led to the founding of the Chun Kuk Do ("Universal Way") form. When he returned to the United States, Norris continued to act as an AP at March Air Force Base, California, until he was honorably discharged in August 1962.

 

were all forgetting the great man himself ,james bond,dont try and tell me hes not real because I want believe you

 

Can someone please explain to me, daft twat that I am, the difference between the RNR and RNVR? The British military seemed at one time to have two different levels of reserve in each service. The Air Force had the RAF Auxiliary and the RAFVR. And I'm old enough to remember the Army's TA&VR.

Thanks,
Dan.

 

RNR were professional seamen, RNVR were amateurs.

Hence the old saw:
RNR = officers trying to be gentlemen
RNVR= gentlemen trying to be officers
RN = neither trying to be both