Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve

The organization was established by Rear-Admiral Walter Hose in a time when the Navy was under drastic budget cuts.

The first commission was given, on March 14, 1923, to Lieutenant Frank Meade, who established a company-sized detachment in Montreal.

By the end of the war, Canada had the third largest navy in the world, with a complement of nearly 100,000.

After the Second World War, the RCNVR was merged with the RCNR on 1 January 1946 to form the Royal Canadian Navy (Reserve).

Officers in the regular navy wore straight stripes on their uniform sleeves while RCNVR officers had wavy stripes, giving rise to the nickname “Wavy Navy”.