For this past Remembrance Sunday, Poppy Day, and today, Veterans Day — lest we forget. 🐹 🇬🇧 🇺🇸 🎗️ 🎗️ 🎗️ 💛

With gratitude and remembrance to all who served. 💗

The Guinea Pig Club, founded in 1941, was a remarkable social club and support network for British and Allied airmen who sustained severe injuries during the Second World War. Its members were patients of the pioneering plastic surgeon Archibald McIndoe at Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead, Sussex. These men had often suffered devastating burns in aircraft accidents and underwent groundbreaking reconstructive and facial surgery under McIndoe’s care.

What began as a circle of camaraderie and dark humor among recovering aircrew soon became a lifelong brotherhood. The club continued to meet long after the war had ended, holding annual reunions that carried on until 2007, keeping alive the bonds forged through extraordinary resilience and shared experience.

The club’s emblem—known as its “brevet”—featured a guinea pig flanked by large RAF-style wings. Two artistic versions were used: one showing the guinea pig sitting upright, ears swept back like a pilot at the controls; the other depicting a more naturalistic guinea pig standing on all fours. Both symbols embodied courage, endurance, and the spirit of innovation that defined the men of the Guinea Pig Club.

Wheek! Wheek!