This appeal from a judgment in favor of a petitioner under § 8(e) of the Selective Training and Sеrvice Act of 1940, 54 Stat. 891, 50 App. U.S.C.A.Appendix § 308 (c), for restoration in employment as required by § 8(b) (B) of the Act' presents a question which appears to be one of first impression in the Circuit Court of Appeals. It is this: Does an employee whose induction is deferred at his employer’s request, but who rеsigns from his employment in order to volunteer for induction into the armed forces, forfeit his statutory right to be restored, on the satisfactory completion of his military service, to the position frоm which he resigned, or to one of like seniority status and pay?
The respondent argues that he dоes. It says that when Congress in § 8(b) of the Act gave a right to reemployment to any person “who, in order to perform * * * training and service, has left or leaves a position” etc., it clearly exрressed its intention to give reemployment rights only to persons forced or compelled tо leave their civilian jobs because of the military training and service required of them by the Act. And the respondent says that this obvious meaning of the words themselves is strongly reenforced by the underlying purрose of the Act to provide military manpower in a controlled and orderly fashion with a minimum of disturbance to essential industry. We do not agree.
In the first place the words chosen by Congress do not seem to us clearly to express the limited meaning attributed to them by the respondent. We think thеy will readily bear the broader interpretation contended for by the petitioner. And in the second place we think the legislative .history of the Act indicates unmistakably that Congress intended its words tо have this broader interpretation. That is to say, we think Congress intended the reemployment provisions of the Act to apply to the man who voluntarily quits his job to enlist or to make himself availablе for induction as well as to the man who is compelled to quit his job because of his induction in the usuаl course.
The bill which eventually became the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, as originally introduced in the Senate, contained no provision for the reemployment of service men upon their return to civilian status. Its reemployment provisions evolved in the Senate Military Affairs Committee to which.the bill was referred. There is no need to detail here
There does not appear to have been any very illuminаting discussion of the amendment on the floor of the Senate, but nevertheless its purport seems сlear. We think it must have been intended so to broaden the scope of the provision as tо make it applicable not only to those who might be forced to leave their employment because of their induction but also to those who might resign from their employment “in order to рerform” their military service as volunteers.
And this interpretation is in accord with the general tenоr of the Act. It is not a national service act. It does not attempt to impose over-аll controls on the nation’s manpower. Its purpose was to increase and train the pеrsonnel of the nation’s armed forces by compelling military service, and as such, it no doubt tended to discourage volunteering. But it did not go so far as to prevent that practice. On the cоntrary in § 3(a) it expressly provided that under certain conditions an opportunity to volunteer for induction must be preserved. To be sure one of the conditions imposed is that the volunteer for induction must not be in a deferred classification, but this falls short of prohibiting a man from stepping out оf such a classification by leaving his employment.
We think the court below was correct in interрreting § 8(b) of the Act as granting reemployment rights to any person who resigns from his job as a means of terminating his deferment and thereby making himself available for voluntary induction, provided of course that he does so for the purpose of serving, is accepted, and then actually serves, in the armed forces.
The judgment of the District Court is affirmed.