The Royal Naval Reserve (RNR) is one of the two volunteer reserve forces of the Royal Navy in the United Kingdom. Together with the Royal Marines Reserve, they form the Maritime Reserve. The present RNR was formed by merging the original Royal Naval Reserve, created in 1859, and the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR), created in 1903. The Royal Naval Reserve has seen action in World War I, World War II, the Iraq War and the War in Afghanistan.
Members of the Royal Naval Reserve training at Tramore, County Waterford, c. 1905
A First World War RNR Lieutenant wearing the "wavy navy" rank insignia of reserve officers
Lieutenants of the RNR (left) and RNVR (right) during the Second World War—note the difference in insignia styles.
The crew of HMS Castle Harbour, assigned to the Royal Naval Dockyard in the Imperial fortress colony of Bermuda as the Examination Service vessel (that inspected merchant ships at Five Fathom Hole, under the guns of St. David's Battery - designated the Examination Battery, prior to their entering the shipping channel through Bermuda's reef). Crew members shown included a Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve officer at left, a Royal Navy officer, regular and temporary ratings,
A minesweeper is a small warship designed to remove or detonate naval mines. Using various mechanisms intended to counter the threat posed by naval mines, minesweepers keep waterways clear for safe shipping.
Minesweeper J 636 underway in British coastal waters during World War II
A minesweeper cutting loose moored mines
Magnetic naval minesweeper as a monument in Kotka, Finland
Siegburg, a modern Ensdorf-class minesweeper of the German Navy