Navy, Army and Air Force Reserves Act 1954
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
Navy, Army and Air Force Reserves Act , 1954
(2 & 3 Eliz. 2) CHAPTER 10
An Act to make further provision for the liability to be recalled to service of certain persons who have served in the armed forces of the Crown and for purposes connected with the matter aforesaid.
Be it enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—
1 Reserve liability after service in armed forces.
(1) During the period beginning with the commencement of this Act and ending with the last day of June, nineteen hundred and fifty-nine—
(a ) any national service man or national service volunteer who has completed his whole-time and part-time service within the meaning of the National Service Acts, 1948 to 1950, or service treated under those Acts as performed in lieu thereof or as equivalent thereto, and
(b ) any male person (not being a person excluded from this paragraph by either subsection (2) or subsection (3) of this section) who was a member of the armed forces of the Crown at any time during the period beginning with the third day of September, nineteen hundred and thirty-nine and ending with the last day of December, nineteen hundred and forty-eight (herein-after referred to as the ‘war-service period’)
shall except as hereinafter provided be a man of the appropriate reserve if and so long as he is under the age of forty-five and is not a member of the armed forces of the Crown apart from this section.
(2) Paragraph (b ) of the foregoing subsection shall not include any person who before the commencement of this Act had finally terminated the engagement or latest engagement by virtue of which he was a member of the armed forces of the Crown during the war-service period.
(3) Paragraph (b ) of subsection (1) of this section shall not include any person who after the thirty-first day of May, nineteen hundred and forty-six and before the commencement of this Act—
(a ) was commissioned, entered or enlisted in the royal naval reserve, the royal naval volunteer reserve or the royal marine forces volunteer reserve; or
(b ) enlisted in the army reserve for service as a militiaman or enlisted in the territorial army; or
(c ) was commissioned or enlisted in the royal air force volunteer reserve otherwise than for service as a member of a part of that reserve called out on permanent service, or was commissioned or enlisted in the royal auxiliary air force; or
(d ) was commissioned in the supplementary reserve of officers or army emergency reserve of officers or served as an officer of an unembodied part of the territorial army:
Provided that paragraphs (a ) to (c ) of this subsection shall not apply to men discharged, otherwise than for the purpose of taking a commission, before completion of the term for which they entered or enlisted as mentioned in those paragraphs if they so entered or enlisted after the twentieth day of March, nineteen hundred and fifty-one.
(4) At any time when a person is a man of the appropriate reserve by virtue of this Act the service authority or an officer designated by the service authority may discharge him from that reserve; but if a person so discharged for the purpose of becoming a member of the armed forces of the Crown apart from this Act ceases to be such a member before the last day of June, nineteen hundred and fifty-nine, he shall, if and so long as he is under the age of forty-five, again be a man of the appropriate reserve by virtue of this Act until the end of that day, but without prejudice to the power of the service authority or a designated officer to discharge him again.
(5) In subsection (2) of this section the expression ‘engagement’ means commission, entry or enlistment; and the reference in that subsection to a person's having finally terminated an engagement shall be construed—
(a ) in the case of a commission, as a reference to the relinquishment thereof;
(b ) in the case of an entry or enlistment, as a reference to his having obtained his discharge therefrom otherwise than by having purchased it after the thirtieth day of September, nineteen hundred and fifty-three:
Provided that—
(i) where after the twentieth day of March, nineteen hundred and fifty-one a person has been discharged for the purpose of again entering or enlisting in any of the armed forces of the Crown for a term, then if (whether before or after the commencement of this Act) he has been discharged before the completion of that term from the force in which he so entered or enlisted he shall not thereafter be excluded from paragraph (b ) of subsection (1) of this section by virtue of the first-mentioned discharge;
(ii) a person who undertook an engagement without having finally terminated an earlier engagement of his shall not be deemed for the purposes of subsection (2) of this section to have finally terminated the later engagement until he has finally terminated the earlier engagement.
2 Meaning of ‘appropriate reserve’.
(1) In relation to a national service man or national service volunteer whose last service in the armed forces of the Crown was naval or marine service, the appropriate reserve shall be the royal naval special reserve maintained under the National Service Act, 1948.
(2) In relation to any person such as is mentioned in paragraph (b ) of subsection (1) of the foregoing section whose last such service was naval service, the appropriate reserve shall be the royal naval emergency reserve, which reserve the Admiralty shall maintain.
(3) In relation to any such person as aforesaid whose last such service was marine service, the appropriate reserve shall be the royal marine emergency reserve, which reserve the Admiralty shall maintain.
(4) In relation to a person whose last such service was military service, the appropriate reserve shall be the army reserve.
(5) In relation to a person whose last such service was air force service, the appropriate reserve shall be the air force reserve.
3 Application of enactments to men of appropriate reserve.
(1) The Royal Naval Reserve (Volunteer) Act, 1859, shall apply to persons who are men of the royal naval special reserve, the royal naval emergency reserve or the royal marine emergency reserve by virtue of this Act subject to the modification that section three (which relates to training and exercise) shall not apply and that the power under section four to call a reservist into actual...
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