Caterpillar Club Badge of Sergeant Leonard Clarke

The Caterpillar Club awards membership to people whose lives have been saved by baling out of a stricken aircraft using an Irvin parachute. Members are awarded a gold caterpillar pin badge (the caterpillar represents the silk thread from which parachutes were originally made).

Leonard Clarke was a flight engineer on Lancasters with No. 7 Squadron. His aircraft was shot down on an operation to Brunswick on 14 January 1944. One of only two survivors, Leonard was able to bale out but was captured and spent the rest of the war as a prisoner in Stalag IVB.