The legend of Unsinkable Sam - the cat who served on and survived 3 sinking ships during WW2

The legend of Unsinkable Sam - the cat who served on and survived 3 sinking ships during WW2

Unsinkable Sam started his service in the fleet of the Nazi regime, the Kriegsmarine, and ended it in the Royal Navy.

Unsinkable Sam served on 3 vessels during World War 2. Each ship sank during battle and surprisingly Sam survived each sinking!

The black and white tabby had been owned by an unknown crewman of the German battleship Bismarck. He was on board the ship on May 18, 1941 when it set sail on Operation Rheinübung, Bismarck's first and only mission.

Ultimately, the ship was sank, and only 118 from its crew of over 2,200 survived. Hours later, Sam was found floating on a board and picked from the water, the only survivor to be rescued by the homeward-bound British destroyer HMS Cossack. The crew didn’t know the cat’s name and they named him Oscar.

The cat served on board Cossack for the next few months as the ship carried out convoy escort duties in the Mediterranean and north Atlantic.

Ultimately, the destroyer was badly damaged by a torpedo, and 139 of its crew were killed. On October 27, 1941, a day after the tow was slipped, Cossack sank to the west of Gibraltar, and Oscar was found clinging to a piece of plank; he made it and was brought to the shore establishment in Gibraltar.

When they learned what happened, British officers changed his name to Unsinkable Sam – a fitting name for a cat that survived the sinking of two warships.

Unsinkable Sam was then adopted by the crew of the HMS Ark Royal – ironically, a ship that was instrumental in sinking the Bismarck. Ark Royal survived several near misses and gained a reputation as a ‘lucky ship’.

But luck didn’t last, and when returning from Malta on November 14, 1941, this ship too was torpedoed, this time by an U-boat.

Sam was found clinging to a floating plank by a motor launch, and described as “angry but quite unharmed”.

After serving and surviving 3 sunk battleships, Sam officially retired.

After the sinking of the Royal, Sam was transferred to a job on land and spent his days hunting mice in the building of the Governor General in Gibraltar.

Eventually, he was sent back to the UK where he remained at a ‘Home for Sailors’ in Belfast until the end of his earthly days. He passed away peacefully in 1955.

A pastel portrait of Sam (titled "Oscar, the Bismarck's Cat") by the artist Georgina Shaw-Baker is in the possession of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich

Proof that cats have 9 lives? We know Unsinkable Sam definitely used at least 3 during the war.

Related Story: Soldiers and cats can be the purrfect companions