Feline groovy on Cat Island
QUESTION Is there a Japanese island populated only by cats?
THERE are 11 Japanese cat islands where felines outnumber humans. In Japanese folklore, cats have protective powers and symbolise good luck.
None of these islands is entirely populated by cats. The most extreme example is mile-long Aoshima in the Ehime Prefecture where there are 13 elderly people and more than 200 cats.
The felines are fed by food donations sent from all over japan.
It was once a thriving fishing village with a population of 900. The fishermen brought in cats to deal with mice on their boats. The human population dwindled after World War II, but the cats still thrive.
There has been a drive to spray or neuter all the cats to control numbers. Tashirojima in Miyagi Prefecture has a population of 100 people and at least as many cats.
The cat islands are major tourist attractions. Tashirojima has even built a shrine honouring the cats for their service and work.
A. S. Webber, Pembroke.
QUESTION Did any foreigners fight on the nationalist side during the Spanish Civil war?
FURTHER to the earlier answer, you may be interested in two stories told to me, one by my father and another by my mother.
My Father John Baldwin (RIP), who had been a teenager during the Spanish Civil War and who had been largely raised by his Grandmother, Nora Walsh, told me the following story...
With some encouragement from General Eoin O’Duffy, a group of men agreed to join with Franco’s Nationalist Forces during the Spanish Civil War, and 700 of them arrived at the fishing village of Passage East, in Co. Waterford, in 1937. A ship was to come from Spain to take the group back to become part of the Nationalist forces fighting the communists and anti-Catholics of the Republican Army.
However – according to my father – the ship that was to carry the volunteers to Spain was prevented from leaving Spanish waters by the British Navy’s Blockade in the Bay of Biscay, so it never arrived at the Irish coast.
The volunteers – living in tents on the terrace overlooking Waterford Harbour – soon ran out of provisions and cash. They had been completely ostracised by the villagers and shopkeepers, who treated the men with compempt.
However, Nora Walsh – whose husband and only son on board two merchant ships (SS Cunningbeg and Formby) that had been torpedoed and on which they’d lost their lives during WWI, in December 1917 – was a widow who had been granted a pension by the admiralty for her loss.
Nora decided on humanitarian grounds to buy bread and make soup for the volunteers (she was a stubborn woman who ignored the persuasions of the village people) and fed them each day. She did so until they gave up after several weeks and marched away.
My mother (Catherine Griffin Baldwin) had a First Cousin named Patrick (Paddy) Dalton who’d wished to become a priest. However, Paddy, the son of a poor family, had been unable to join the priesthood, so he went to Wales in 1935, where a kind Bishop took him under his care and sent him to study at the English College (Seminary) in Spain, at the city of Vallodolid, North of Madrid.
The Spanish Civil War broke out the following year, and the seminary students were told their lives would be in danger if the Republicans succeeded in taking over the city. They were all advised to return home. However, Paddy decided to join the Nationalist Forces and ‘Fight for God’ against the anticlerical army of the Spanish Republic. Sadly, Paddy was killed in 1938 and the only news or reference to his passing was a letter his family received, in July 1940.
Tom Baldwin, Midleton, Co. Cork.
QUESTION Did warships in the Battle of the Atlantic have strengthened bows to ram German U-boats?
BY WORLD War II, ramming was deemed an unnecessarily dangerous tactic.
In World War I, anti-sub warfare was an extension of ship-to-ship combat tactics. Ships could attack with cannon or by ramming only when subs surfaced. In 1914, one of the first successful anti-submarine attacks was the ramming of the German sub SM U-15 by the warship HMS Birmingham.
Decoy Q-ships were heavily armed anti-sub ships disguised as vulnerable targets to lure subs into making surface attacks.
All Royal Navy destroyers were fitted with ASDIC (sonar) during the early 1930s to detect a sub’s acoustic signature.
A range recorder was developed to provide a target position so depth charges could be deployed. This was the foundation of antisubmarine warfare in the Battle of the Atlantic, the war’s longest continuous military campaign.
QUESTION Is there a poem written from the perspective of an unborn child?
FURTHER to the earlier answer about Spike Milligan’s poem Unto Us, Pink Floyd did a great song on the theme called Embryo — complete with gurgling: ‘Warm glow, moon bloom Always need a little more room Waiting here seems like years I will see the sunshine show.’
The song was not released officially, but featured as a ten to 12minute jam in their live set in the early 1970s. It can be found on the band’s 1983 Works compilation.
Danny Darcy, Reading, Berks.
Is there a question to which you have always wanted to know the answer? Or do you know the answer to a question raised here? Send your questions and answers to: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspondents, Irish Daily Mail, DMG Media, Two Haddington Buildings, 20-38 Haddington Road, Dublin 4, D04 HE94. You can also fax them to 0044 1952 510906 or you can email them to charles. legge@dailymail.ie. A selection will be published but we are not able to enter into individual correspondence.