If any creature ever got that sinking feeling, it was surely a feline sailor who got the feeling three times but waded through them all.

The black and white ship’s cat was originally named Oscar but then became known as Unsinkable Sam.

Kriegsmarine Apprenticeship

The cute feline started his sea-going career in the Kriegsmarine, the fighting navy of the Third Reich and ended his vocation in the Royal Navy. Sam was on board Bismarck, the HMS Cossack, and the HMS Ark Royal.

The Cool Part

Here comes the cool part: while all those three ships sank, Sam survived them all. Sam was no pussy and that is for certain.

Unsinkable Sam was then adopted by the crew of the HMS Ark Royal.

Ironically, this was the aircraft carrier that was instrumental in sinking the Bismarck that Sam had originally shipped out on.

Ark Royal survived several near misses and gained a reputation as a ‘lucky ship.’ Germany incorrectly reported her as sunk on multiple occasions.

The Cat Came Back

But the cat’s luck didn’t last. When returning from Malta on November 14, 1941, this ship, too, was torpedoed, this time by a German U-boat.

On this occasion, Sam was found clinging to a floating plank by a motor launch and the soggy moggy was described as ‘angry but quite unharmed’.

Mouser

But by this time, Sam had had enough. He 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.

According to the story, Unsinkable Sam survived the destruction of three warships in World War II and lived happily until 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.

As for Sam’s legacy, it goes to show that even in the direst of circumstances, even as everything around you is crumbling down, you can still cling on to a piece of wood, get rescued, and move on to another ship and start over again.

Or it goes to show that cats really do have nine lives, all of which are absolutely worth living. Let readers know what you think

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