OPINION
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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, JULY 24, 2015
Tiny gold caterpillar wiggles into
epic tales of wartime bravery
Matt Winters/EO Media Group
Caterpillar Club pins were issued by the Irvin company to fliers whose lives were saved by their parachutes. The caterpillar represents a silkworm, which create the threads
from which many World War II-era chutes were made. The pin’s actual size is about 1 inch in length.
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Matt Winters/Family Photo
A World War II flier (Matt Winters’ father-in-law Don
Couty) wears an Irvin parachute. Developed by Leslie
Irvin just after World War I, the chutes have saved tens
of thousands of fliers forced to bail out of crashing or
burning aircraft.
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The back of a pin issued by the Irving Air Chute Co. (In the early-1940s, for
some reason it went by “Irving” even though its owner’s name was “Irvin”)
is engraved “Pres. by Irving | R.C. Hughes | 7/22/42.” Hughes may have been
a U.S. Army Air Forces flier from Washington state.
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—M.S.W.
Matt Winters is editor of the Chinook
Observer and Coast River Business
Journal. He lives in Ilwaco, Wash., with
his wife and daughter.
Open forum
A little off the top, please
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STEPHEN A. FORRESTER, Editor & Publisher • LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor
BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager
• CARL EARL, Systems Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
• DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
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