The caterpillar club
Thousands of airmen, and a few airwomen, harbour among the most highly treasured souvenirs of their service a tiny Caterpillar Pin. It is their passport to one of the most famous flying clubs in the world-The Irvin Caterpillar Club, all of whose members have saved their lives by parachute. Airborne Systems Canada keeps files on those who qualify as members of the Caterpillar Club and reside in the Americas. Airborne Systems Europe Ltd. of the United Kingdom tracks all Europe-residing Caterpillar Club members.
One evening in the early 1920s, Mr. Leslie Irvin, inventor of the modern parachute, sat talking over a drink at McCook Field, (near the site of Wright-Patterson AFB) with two American pilots-the first two airmen ever to save their lives with parachutes of his design. "You know, Leslie", remarked one of the pilots, "we ought to start a club for guys like us. As time goes by more and more fliers all over the world will owe their lives to your 'chutes, it should be quite a thing in years to come...".
 Today the Club boasts tens of thousands of Caterpillar Club members of all nations who have escaped death by jumping with an IRVIN parachute. Files of the American and Canadian members are kept at the Airborne Systems Canada plant in Belleville, Ontario, Canada, which has a membership excess of 12,000 men & women. Each one has been given a gold Caterpillar Pin and Membership to The Irvin Caterpillar Club, honouring the pledge which Leslie Irvin gave to those first two fliers who saved their lives with his parachutes many years ago. (The Caterpillar is symbolic of the silk worm which lets itself descend gently to earth from heights by spinning a silk thread upon which to hang. Parachutes in the early days were made from pure silk.)
By 1939, Caterpillar Club membership had risen to 4,000 and included fliers from China to Peru and nearly 50 countries in between. Among the famous personalities wearing the treasured Pin, were America's General Doolittle-who bailed out three times and once cabled Leslie Irvin: "Airplane failed. Chute worked."-Germany's ace flier Ernst Udet, Britain's Lord Douglas Hamilton, and a score of test pilots including Alec Henshaw, Geoffery de Havilland and John Cunningham.
 At the outbreak of the Second World War a shortage of gold-and reasons of economy-made it necessary to substitute a gilt gold Caterpillar Pin in place of the gold one, but no person who applied, and could substantiate his claim to own one, was disappointed. Into the trays of the filing cabinets went the names of some of the greatest air aces of the war-"Cobber" Kain, Sir Douglas Bader, "Bluey" Truscott, "Pathfinder" Don Bennett and hundreds of others. With them, too, each in its own individual and carefully indexed folder went stories of escape, some so amazing that to read them makes the adventures of James Bond seem like child's play. Some of the fliers were blown boldly out of their aircraft during combat; some floated safely to earth with their parachute canopy ripped by enemy bullets; some jumped at 30,000 feet; others at 200 feet-or less.
More than 13,000 R.A.F. officers and airmen wrote from prisoner-of-war camps to apply for their pins after parachuting from crippled bombers and fighters over enemy territory. Two brothers in Bomber Command bailed out over Germany within twelve months of each other to qualify for membership and one sergeant-pilot wrote on a P.O.W. postcard to thank Leslie Irvin for an easy let-down "on behalf of my future-as yet unknown-wife and children." Among these thousands of R.A.F. men only one airwoman received the coveted Caterpillar Pin during the war-Corporal F.H. Poser, who jumped from 600 feet while serving with a meteorological unit in the Middle East. Since then several other women have become fully qualified members of the Club.
The official membership of the Caterpillar Club is only a fraction of the total number who are eligible. It does not include, for example, the thousands of Americans who parachuted safely in the Pacific War, nor of course, the Luftwaffe airmen, most of whom carried an Irvin-designed parachute, made at a factory bought out by the Nazis in 1936. Officials at the U.K. office often wondered what they would do if enemy fliers applied for the Caterpillar Pin - as they were perfectly entitled to do. Fortunately the position never arose during wartime, although some of these pilots did apply and were granted membership in the years following the war. Altogether, it is estimated that at least 100,000 persons - as many as would fill Wembley Stadium or the Rose Bowl - have saved their lives by IRVIN parachutes.
From the time of its inception to the time of his death on October 9, 1966, Leslie Irvin was Honorary Secretary of the Caterpillar Club, but despite the fact that he made more than 300 parachute jumps he never became eligible for membership-he never had to jump to save his life.
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