On this special day, I am remembering my father, Robert Moore Chestnutt, who flew with the R.A.F. in the second world war. In 1944 he bailed out of a burning plane – thankfully not over enemy territory. In recognition of his bravery, he was given a tiny gold caterpillar with a ruby red eye. It is no longer than a fingernail and is now among my most precious possessions. I am wearing it today to say thank you to those who fought and lived, as well as those who fought and died.
The Irvin Air Chute Co. started the Caterpillar Club in 1922 and the practice of awarding the tiny gold Caterpillar Pin to anyone who saved his life by parachuting from a disabled or flaming aircraft. Each recipient of the Caterpillar Pin was living testimony to the life-saving ability of the Irvin Type Air Chute. The Caterpillar is symbolic of the silk worm, which lets itself descend gently to earth from heights by spinning a silky thread to hang from. Parachutes in the early days were made from pure silk. In 1919 Leslie Irvin, a 24-year-old stunt man from California, demonstrated the first "free drop" parachute. He had made the chute himself on a borrowed sewing machine. Flying safety experts were so impressed that the American Air Force and British R.A.F. promptly adopted the parachute as standard equipment.
During the height of World War II, production of parachutes at the Irvin Air Chute Co. factory in Letchworth, England reached a peak of nearly 1,500 parachutes per week. By late 1945 there were 34,000 members of the Caterpillar Club. It is estimated that at least 100,000 people’s lives have been saved by Irvin parachutes.
A few years before his death my father wrote down all of his war memories in One Man’s War. He was a wireless operator flying in Lancaster bombers and his account includes details of no fewer than thirty-two bombing missions over enemy territory.
Stuttgart, Kiel, Paullae, Stetten, Russelheim, Frankfurt, Leeuwarden, Essen…he records a long list of European towns where he and his crew dropped bombs. Although their targets were mainly in industrial heartlands, however I think of it I cannot escape the fact that my father was responsible for the deaths of many people. War is a nasty business.
Sitting on the edge of that hole he promised an invisible God that if he got out alive he would become a believer and serve him for the rest of his life. He survived and became a preacher and a fisher of men. We didn’t have a TV for most of my growing up and when we finally did get one we were definitely not allowed to watch the silver screen on the Sabbath. Yet I can recall coming home late one Sunday evening when I was in my teens to discover my father glued to the box. He was watching the film The Dambusters and reliving his days of terror seated high in the Astra Dome with 100 Squadron.
What strikes me now is that my father was only 18 when he joined up. He spent the next four years flying both during the war and afterwards in India, Burma and Ceylon (Sri Lanka) with Transport Command. Most wars are fought by teenagers – they give their best years when others are going to university or starting careers. When he was demobbed he left with his civvies, a meagre gratuity and memories of comrades lost.
Dad - you died too young aged 60, but you are still my hero. In the words of poet, Wendell Berry, I am 'the inheritor of what I mourned.' As my dad, you shaped so much of who I am and you are still here in every moment when I struggle to overcome and to grow into who I am meant to be. I wish I had half of your courage and determination, but you are always before me as an example of what it means to fight the good fight and finish well. Thank you.
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.
(From An Irish Airman Foresees his Death) W. B. Yeats
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.
(From An Irish Airman Foresees his Death) W. B. Yeats
