CAT TALES: PUSHING NINE LIVES TO THE LIMIT OR EXTRA VERSES OF "THE CAT CAME BACK"

This is an incredible tale of a ship's cat during WW2 that may be either true to some extent or more of an apocryphal sea story. 

Our story begins in May of 1941 on the Battleship Bismark, the pride of the German Navy. Aboard was a crewman's black and white cat whose name, age and owner is unknown. 

Bismark

Nine days after setting sail, Bismark was sunk after a fierce fire fight with the British Navy. Only 115 out of 2100 souls survived and were picked up by destroyers after the battle including the cat who was purportedly found floating on top of a board and rescued by the Cossack.

HMS Cossack

The crewman on the Cossack named the cat Oscar (or Oskar-he was a German cat), "O" coming from naval code for Man Overboard. Oscar served on the Cossack which conducted convoy escort duty in the Mediterranean Sea and North Atlantic Ocean until October 1941 when the ship was torpedoed. Oscar managed to survive and was transferred with the surviving crew to Gibraltar. There he eventually was assigned to the carrier Ark Royal, which had played an important role in the sinking of the Bismark.

HMS Ark Royal

There, he was renamed "Unsinkable Sam". Unfortunately, in November 1941 while operating in the Mediterranean, the Ark Royal was torpedoed. The ship was slow to sink and all but one of the crew were saved-Sam and several of his crew mates were rescued clinging to a plank. 

This ended Sam's shipborne career. He was transferred first to the offices of the Governor of Gibraltar and then sent back to the United Kingdom, where he saw out the remainder of the war living in a seaman's home in Belfast called the "Home for Sailors". He died there in 1955.