NISO

The reign of Di Sinya.

Unsinkable Sam is a ship's cat who served during World War II on a German battleship, a British destroyer, and later on an aircraft carrier, survived the sinking of all three ships, and died ashore in 1955.
The black and white cat was brought aboard the German battleship Bismarck by an unknown sailor. On May 18, 1941, the ship set out from Gotenhafen with orders to sink British merchant ships. Nine days later, on May 27, the battleship was sunk by a British squadron, with only 115 sailors out of 2,200 surviving. A few hours later, the cat, floating on the wreckage of the ship, was spotted by English sailors from the returning destroyer HMS Cossack and taken aboard. At the same time, the destroyer's crew failed to save a single person. Not knowing the cat's real name, the English sailors gave him the nickname Oscar.
For the next few months, Oscar spent on board the destroyer, which escorted several convoys in the Mediterranean and North Atlantic. On October 24, 1941, the Cossack, escorting convoy HG-75, which was heading from Gibraltar to Liverpool, was torpedoed by the German submarine U-563. The ship's crew transferred to the destroyer HMS Legion, and attempts to tow the heavily damaged ship back to Gibraltar were unsuccessful due to deteriorating weather conditions. On October 27, the destroyer sank. The German torpedo, which hit the bow of the ship, caused the death of 159 English sailors, but Oscar survived this time as well. He spent some time ashore in Gibraltar.
After the sinking of the Cossack, the cat received the nickname "Unsinkable Sam" from the British and was transferred to the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal, whose aircraft greatly contributed to the sinking of his first ship, the Bismarck. Sam, however, did not stay on the new ship for long. Already on November 14, the aircraft carrier, returning from Malta, was torpedoed by the German submarine U-81. Attempts to take the sinking ship in tow again proved fruitless, and the Ark Royal sank 30 miles east of Gibraltar. However, all the sailors and pilots, along with Sam, were rescued by the ships that came to the rescue. Several sailors, along with Sam, who were clinging to the wreckage of the ship, were picked up by a patrol boat. The survivors were transferred first to the destroyer HMS Lightning, and then again to the destroyer HMS Legion, which had previously participated in Sam's rescue. The fate of these two ships also turned out to be unenviable. The Legion was sunk four months later, on March 26, 1942, as a result of an air raid, and the Lightning was sunk by the German torpedo boat S-55 on March 12, 1943.
After the sinking of the aircraft carrier, it was decided to leave the cat ashore. Sam lived for some time in the office of the Governor-General of Gibraltar, but was soon sent to the United Kingdom, where he met the end of the war in Belfast. Unsinkable Sam died ashore in 1955. A pastel drawing of the heroic cat, made by the artist Georgina Shaw-Baker, is now kept in the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich.
Species:
Cats
Place of birth:
Third Reich
Date of death:
1955
Place of death:
Belfast, United Kingdom
Place of burial:
Belfast
Occupation:
ship's cat (on several ships)