The Legendary Cat That Survived Three Shipwrecks And a War
His name was Unsinkable Sam and he went viral long before the internet was invented
On May 27th, 1941, the German battleship Bismark was sent to the bottom of the ocean after a fierce naval battle with the Royal British Navy. Over 2,000 crewmembers lost their lives in the aftermath. Hundreds of dead and wounded were put into the cold waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
After the battle, the HMS Cossack moved in and began picking through the wreckage. The British destroyer was looking for survivors. The destroyer found a lot of German sailors splashing in the sea but they also found something else — a cat.
A black and white cat was reportedly clinging to a board in the waves awaiting rescue with the rest of the crew that had survived. Cats on ships were very common but it was not often that one survived such a violent wreck.
Delighted, the British sailors plucked the cat from the sea and rehabilitated it back to health aboard its new home. The British named the cat Oscar after the German code for “O” which had been playing on repeat signaling men overboard.
The cat had survived one shipwreck when thousands of others hadn’t and it was going to survive a whole lot more.
