WWII Royal Navy Sleeve Rank Insignia

[Havan_IronOak]

I watched the film Sink the Bismarck again the other day and was noticing the different Sleeve Rank Insignia

I've Googled it and I think that the Admiral of the Fleet guy is wearing the right insignia as are most of the others but... One guy (he's always the one with bad news signals Hood Sunk, tailing cruisers have lost contact)has wavy rather than straight sleeve stripes. Also the loop is more square than the standard circle. I can't find that in any of the charts.

Is that an indicator of some other service? Merchant Marine perhaps?

[Aktungbby]

"From 1863 officers were commissioned in the Royal Naval Reserve (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Naval_Reserve) this was for serving merchant navy officers only. They had rings each formed from two 1⁄4in wavy lines intersecting each other. In 1903 the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve was instituted and the officers were distinguished with waved stripes worn parallel to each other, surmounted by a squared waved “curl”. In addition to this we may see, at some naval establishment ashore, officers with an emerald green cloth between their stripes. These officers will invariably wear the single thin wavy stripes of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (The Wavy Navy): they belong to the Special Branch. Add to these various ranks the double, intertwined wavy sleeve markings of the Royal Naval Reserve - for the most part officers of the Merchant Navy in peacetime" wiki

[Havan_IronOak]

Naval reserve makes sense.

[Jimbuna]

Not the best images (two of them) but they should help:

http://i.imgur.com/hJ50joL.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/vA5yeY6.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/EKwsvBr.jpg

[Aktungbby]

# 30 is what I wear on formal occasions when strolling the starboard side of my first-rate's quarterdeck! :D Otherwise superb illustrations!:up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarterdeck (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarterdeck) (where it all happens)...it's even higher than the 'poop deck':03: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e4/Quarter_Deck_Frigate.jpg/220px-Quarter_Deck_Frigate.jpg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Quarter_Deck_Frigate.jpg)