Caterpillar Club awarded to Sqdn Ldr James Stanley Reed

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Members are awarded a gold caterpillar pin badge (the caterpillar represents the silk thread from which parachutes were originally made).

During a sortie to drop an agent over France, the engines of the Handley Page Halifax of No. 138 Squadron, on which Reed served as wireless operator, iced up. The crew was forced to abandon the aircraft and parachuted into occupied France, where they were assisted by the French Resistance in escaping to Spain.