Posted 8 years ago
TassieDevil
(175 items)
This is a wonderful Irvin Air Chute Caterpillar Club badge, awarded by Irvin to survivors of an emergency bailout who were wearing one of their parachutes.
It is gold, with ruby eyes I think, and measures a tiny 3/4 of an inch.
It is engraved on the reverse: SGT R J GARDINER.
Research indicates this badge to have been awarded to RAAF 407396 Ronald Joseph Gardiner, who bailed out of Wellington IC HX560 on 9/10 August 1942 in the Middle East while attached to 40SQN RAF.
I am happy to be able to tell you that Sgt Gardiner returned safely to Australia after the war.....
I have had this wonderful badge in my collection for about 4 years now.
Wow, I never heard of such a thing!
Love it. I have seen uniforms with an embroidered version of this as well.
scott
Thanks Chrisnp, I had not heard of them either until I came across this one on Ebay and thought wow this looks interesting with a name on the back!!!! And so the research started!!!! and I was determined it was going to be mine...... it wasn't even listed in Military either so I got it for a very good price!!
Thank you scottvez, yes I have seen those as well!! I think quite a few parachute companies ended up doing similar things ......and there are ones for the goldfish club, late arrivals club etc can't offhand remember what the others are called.....I don't have any of those......would like to though lol.......
Yep several different. I have one from a company that is a pin with a parachute-- don't recall offhand what company.
scott
Thanks to everyone for the love, much appreciated!
ho2cultcha, brunswick, kyratango, nutsabotas6, martika , Vintageforever, aura , NevadaBlades, Chrisnp, Efesgirl , fortapache, SEAN68 , racer4four and katherinescollections.
Do you have a picture in your postings Scott so I can have a look?
Thank you kindly Gillian for the love...
No-- I'll see if I can find it and post it on CW.
scott
That would be great thanks Scott!
Thank you vetraio50 and antiquerose for the love!
Great post Tassiedevil.
Thanks so much Caperkid and for the love.....it is a special piece!!
I missed this before Judy.
What a fascinating and cool brooch!
Did you find that info through the War Memorial site?
Thanks Karen, no it took me quite a while to find any information......eventually got lucky and found a wonderful man on line who was researching the same name, so by the time we sorted through each others information and put it together we were 99% certain we had the correct person for the badge......
How good is that! Well done; it's so good to have the story behind he pin.
Thanks Karen!