Page 25 - John George Blair

As Jack and the crew survived a ditching in the North Sea they qualified to be members of the
Gold fish Club

The Goldfish Club was formed in November, 1942 by C. A. Robertson, the Chief Draftsman at the
United Kingdom's PB Cow & Co., one of the world’s largest manufacturers of air-sea rescue
equipment.

With the company’s backing, the club was named The Goldfish Club: gold for the value of life, and
fish for the water. Each member was presented with a heat-sealed waterproof membership card
and an embroidered badge. News of the club spread rapidly, and in January 1943 the BBC
broadcast an interview by Wynford Vaughan-Thomas with Robertson and two members who had
qualified on their first operational flight.

Due to wartime regulations, production of metallic-embroidered badges was prohibited and all
cloth was severely rationed. These problems were overcome with silk embroidery substituted for
wire upon black cloth cut from old evening dress suits that were sent by readers of the London
Daily Express after an appeal by columnist William Hickey. Uniform dress regulations prohibited
the wearing of the Goldfish Club badge on British and American uniforms. The badge was
generally worn by naval aircrews upon their Mae Wests. Many RAF & USAAF air crewmen placed
their badge under the flap of their left hand uniform pocket.

The Goldfish Club is a worldwide association of people who have jumped by parachute from an
aircraft into the water, or whose aircraft crashed in the water, and whose lives were saved by a life
jacket, inflatable dinghy, or similar device. The Goldfish Club badge shows a white-winged
goldfish flying over two symbolic blue waves. The main aim of the club is 'to keep alive the spirit of
comradeship arising from the mutual experience of members surviving, "coming down in the drink"

By the end of the war the club had over 9000 members.