KLB Club
Encyclopedia
The KLB Club was formed on 12 October 1944, and included the 168 allied
Allies of World War II
The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...

 airmen who were held prisoner at Buchenwald concentration camp
Buchenwald concentration camp
Buchenwald concentration camp was a German Nazi concentration camp established on the Ettersberg near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937, one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps on German soil.Camp prisoners from all over Europe and Russia—Jews, non-Jewish Poles and Slovenes,...

 between 20 August and 19 October 1944. 166 airmen survived Buchenwald, while 2 died of sickness at the camp.

Background

As allied air forces
Allies of World War II
The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...

 took control of the skies over Europe in the summer of 1944, Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

 ordered the immediate execution of allied flyers accused of committing certain acts. The most common act was to be captured in civilian clothing and/or without their dog tags by the Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...

 or Secret Police. These airmen had been shot down mainly over France, but also over Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

 and the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 and were turned over to the Gestapo and Secret Police - by traitors within the French Resistance
French Resistance
The French Resistance is the name used to denote the collection of French resistance movements that fought against the Nazi German occupation of France and against the collaborationist Vichy régime during World War II...

 - while attempting to reach England along escape routes such as the Comet
Comet line
The Comet line was a World War II resistance group in Belgium/France which helped Allied soldiers and airmen return to Britain. The line started in Brussels, where the men were fed, clothed and given false identity papers before being hidden in attics and cellars of houses...

 and Pat Line
Albert Guérisse
Major-General Comte Albert-Marie Edmond Guérisse, GC, KBE, DSO was a Belgian Resistance member who organized escape routes for downed Allied pilots during World War II under the alias of Patrick Albert "Pat" O'Leary, the name of a Canadian friend...

. A notable traitor within the French Resistance was Jacques Desoubrie
Jacques Desoubrie
Jacques Desoubrie was a French traitor and double agent who worked for the Gestapo during the German occupation of France during World War II.-Early life:...

, who was responsible for betraying a significant number of allied airmen to the German authorities.

These captured airmen were given the name "Terrorflieger" (terror flyers), and were not given a trial. The German Foreign Office however, expressed concern about shooting prisoners of war
Prisoner of war
A prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...

 (POWs) and suggested that enemy airmen suspected of such offenses not be given the legal status of POWs. Following this advice, the Gestapo and Security Police informed these captured allied airmen that they were criminals and spies. Using this justification, 168 allied airmen from Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...

, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

 and Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...

 were taken by train - in overcrowded cattle boxcars - from Fresnes Prison
Fresnes Prison
Fresnes Prison is the second largest prison in France, located in the town of Fresnes, Val-de-Marne South of Paris...

 outside Paris, to Buchenwald concentration camp
Buchenwald concentration camp
Buchenwald concentration camp was a German Nazi concentration camp established on the Ettersberg near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937, one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps on German soil.Camp prisoners from all over Europe and Russia—Jews, non-Jewish Poles and Slovenes,...

. After five days in the boxcars, they arrived at Buchenwald on 20 August 1944.

Buchenwald

Nationalities of the 168 airmen
 United States 82 American
48 British
 Canada 26 Canadian
 Australia 9 Australian
 New Zealand 2 New Zealander
 Jamaica 1 Jamaican


Buchenwald was a forced labour camp of about 60,000 inmates of mainly Russian POWs, but also common criminals, religious prisoners (including Jews), and various political prisoners from Germany, France, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. For the first three weeks at Buchenwald, the prisoners were totally shaven, denied shoes and forced to sleep outside without shelter in one of Buchenwald's sub-camps, known as 'Little Camp'. Most airmen doubted they would ever get out of Buchenwald because their documents were stamped with the acronym "DIKAL" (Darf in kein anderes Lager), or "not to be transferred to another camp".

To address the constant stress, long appells (roll call
Roll call
Roll call is the calling of the names of people from a list to determine the presence or absence of the listed people . The term applies to the calling itself, to the time moment of this procedure, and to a military signal that announces it Roll call is the calling of the names of people from a...

s), boredom, insecurity and apprehension, it was decided amongst the 168 airmen to hold formal meetings to give them a sense of purpose and order. Thus, the exclusive KLB Club came into existence with several chapters; Canada, United States, Great Britain, and Australia/New Zealand. Elected representatives of each nationality held separate meetings to collate the previously scattered efforts of those who had proposed address lists, meetings after the war and other pursuits. The meetings at Buchenwald displayed the 168 airmen's militariness and solidarity, forming a bond that brings them together more than 60 years after the liberation of Buchenwald.

At one meeting, it was agreed to design a club pin. The winning design, put forward by Bob Taylor from Great Britain, showed a naked, winged foot, symbolising the airmen's barefoot condition while in the concentration camp. The foot is chained to a ball bearing the letters KLB, with the whole mounted on a white star, which was the crest of the Allied invasion forces. Canadian airman, Willie Walderam, also wrote the poem titled, A Reflection, about Buchenwald (see below). On the night of 19 October, 156 of the 168 airmen were transferred from Buchenwald to Stalag Luft III
Stalag Luft III
Stalag Luft III was a Luftwaffe-run prisoner-of-war camp during World War II that housed captured air force servicemen. It was in the German Province of Lower Silesia near the town of Sagan , southeast of Berlin...

 by the Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1935 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956....

. Two airmen died from sickness at Buchenwald, while the remaining 10 were transported in small groups, over a period of several weeks.

In the book, 168 Jump Into Hell, the purpose of the KLB Club was described to perpetuate the comradeship already shown by the flying personnel of Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, United States and Canada, by the interchanging of pamphlets, ideas and visits. More than 30 years later, in 1979, 4 Canadian KLB members made the first serious attempt to trace all club members. Of the original 168 members, only 28 have not been located or accounted for.

KLB Club members


Poem

A Reflection, by Willie Walderam R.C.A.F.
Royal Canadian Air Force
The history of the Royal Canadian Air Force begins in 1920, when the air force was created as the Canadian Air Force . In 1924 the CAF was renamed the Royal Canadian Air Force and granted royal sanction by King George V. The RCAF existed as an independent service until 1968...

KLB 78402

I'll think of you dear KLB

Again some future day,

When the world is gay and free

And I am so far away.

Of those long appells in pouring rain

With neither boots nor shoes,

And the SS guards who counted us

Hitting whom they choose.

When I bounce my children on my knee

I'll think of the Gypsy kids,

Who, instead of wearing ball and chain,

Should have been wearing bibs.

When I Lay in my cosy bed at night

I'll think of your hard boards,

With a single blanket to cover us,

And fleas and lice in hordes.

Ironically, I'll think of how

You took our dog-tags from us,

'Nix soldat-civil' you said,

Smiling fanatically at us.

Yes, you gave us soup and enough black bread

To etch out a mere existence,

Enough to keep us wanting more

And weaken our resistance

How two of our number lost their lives

For lack of medical aid;

You wouldn't even give them food

To help save them from the grave

And then: after eight weeks spent in your filthy soul,

Which seemed to me like years,

The Luftwaffe came, took us away,

I felt like shedding tears

And so to all you Konzentrators,

A toast I offer thee;

Here's wishing you a happy life,

And to Hell with KLB
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