This black and white cat was rescued from the sea in March 1941 by HMS Cossack, right in the vicinity where the German Battleship Bismarck had been sunk some three hours beforehand. So, it was presumed that he was the Bismarck’s ships cat.
The crew of HMS Cossack estimated him to be about 12 months old and they named him Oscar. Having now switched sides to the British Navy, Oscar served on board Cossack for several months, until fate struck again when Cossack was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-Boat off the coast of Gibraltar.
Oscar was discovered in the sea clinging to a piece of board, rescued and taken to the British base in Gibraltar where he was cared for.
After the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal docked there a few months later, a crew member fell in love and took Oscar on board Ark Royal for his third naval assignment.
Alas, Ark Royal was torpedoed in November 1941 and sank the next day. Oscar was found floating on a plank by a passing motor launch and described on rescue as “angry, but unharmed”.
At this point, he was renamed “Unsinkable Sam” due to surviving three WWII ship disasters and transferred to the Governor General’s residence on Gibraltar which marked the end of his naval career.
After the war, he was sent back to the UK where he lived at a home for retired sailors until his passing in 1955.
Sam is immortalised in the painting "Unsinkable Sam" by Georgina Shaw-Baker, which hangs in the British Maritime Museum in Greenwich.
