Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Ahoy! Daring cats who sailed the seas
ON MARCH 2, a 23-year-old Thai sailor named Thatsaphon Saii jumped into the Andaman Sea to rescue four skinny ginger cats abandoned on a fishing boat that caught fire and capsized.
One photo shows Saii swimming back to his ship with a wet orange cat clinging to his shoulders. Another shows sailors feeding the kitties. The story and photos went viral, captivating people around the world.
Cats have a long history as crew members on ships. Ancient Egyptians used to control infestations of mice and rats. Irish and British sailors used to believe inviting a black cat on board ensured good luck on a journey.
Individual cats have gained recognition for their adventures on ships. Here are five of the most notable:
• Trim: Born in 1799, Trim was a black-and-white cat who travelled on the HMS Investigator while Captain Matthew Flinders mapped Australia’s coastline. When Flinders stopped at Mauritius, French officials accused him of spying and put him under house arrest for six years. Trim stayed by his side until one day, in 1804, he mysteriously disappeared.
• Blackie: During World War II, Blackie, a black cat with white paws, was the ship’s cat on the HMS Prince of Wales. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was a passenger. In August 1941, Churchill was about to step off the ship to meet US President Franklin Roosevelt, when Blackie walked up to him. Churchill reached down to pet him and photographers captured the moment. The picture appeared in newspapers around the world.
• Mrs Chippy: Don’t let the name fool you. This tiger-striped tabby was a male who lived on the Endurance, the ship explorer Ernest Shackleton sailed to Antarctica.
Mrs Chippy liked to climb the rigging in all sorts of weather and once fell overboard. An officer turned the boat around and the ship’s biologist scooped the cat out with a net.
• Simon: In 1949, Simon was travelling aboard HMS Amethyst when the British ship came under attack on China’s Yangtze River. Seventeen crew members died. Simon and 10 sailors were wounded.
The ship was stuck in mud for almost 10 weeks while the two governments negotiated. Simon protected the crews’ shrinking food supply by fighting off aggressive rats.
After the crew made a daring escape one night, they and Simon became heroes. A British animal welfare group presented him with the Dickin Medal, the highest honour awarded to an animal showing bravery in battle. He is the only cat to win the medal. Simon was buried with full naval honours.
• Oscar/Unsinkable Sam: When the German warship Bismarck sank in World War II, British sailors on HMS Cossack found a black-and-white cat floating on a board in the ocean. They rescued him and named him Oscar.
Then their ship was torpedoed. Oscar survived and British naval officers renamed him “Unsinkable Sam”. They stationed him on the HMS Ark Royal. When it, too, was torpedoed, sailors rescued him off another floating board. The governor of Gibraltar adopted Sam, then moved him to a British home for sailors.