On 27 May 1941, after enduring engagement with an overwhelming British naval force, the senior officer of the German battleship Bismarck ordered scuttling charges to be set. The ship sank with most of her crew. However, there were some survivors, and some British ships moved to the wreckage field to save some of them, but they did not take long because they might also be lost due to attack by German U-boats. The British destroyer HMS Cossack rescued a black survivor who had white on the lower part of his face, chest and all four legs: a cat.

The cat was wet and scared, but he endeared himself to the crew. They did not want to deprive the cat of his name, but he did not have a badge. They decided to name him after the phonetic letter used for “man overboard”, which is Oscar. But, since it was a German cat, they spelled the cat’s new name as Oskar. Since Oskar was part of the crew and the crew slept in hammocks, they built a small hammock for Oskar.

Oskar brought joy to the British crew, but no luck. HMS Cossack was torpedoed almost five months after rescuing Oskar the cat. The ship sank while being towed by a salvage tug. Around 150 of her crew went down with her. The rest jumped overboard, including Oskar, whose name had been changed to Oscar after the Cossack crew determined that he had been on their ship longer than on the German ship.

Rescuers from the British aircraft carrier Ark Royal found Oscar clinging to a piece of wood. He was described as “very angry” about what had happened to him. The crew of the Ark Royal also picked up some of the sailors from HMS Cossack, and told them the story of Oskar Oscar. But now he was included in the crew of HMS Ark Royal. They decided that he had been born again, so to speak, and required a new name: Sam. Since he had survived twice before drowning, they called him “Unsinkable Sam” and thought he was a very lucky cat to have him on board. his ship

Eighteen days later, on November 14, 1941, HMS Ark Royal was sunk by a torpedo fired from a German submarine. For the third time, the cat went into the water. She was again rescued by British sailors (who noted that the wet cat was very angry) from the British destroyer HMS Lightning, who transferred him to the destroyer HMS Legion. Sam had become famous, but was now considered a curse to British sailors and possibly a traitor to German sailors (who seemed to be trying to kill him with a torpedo). It was decided to remove him from British ships by making him a permanent resident of the “Sailors’ Home” in Belfast, Ireland. There, he survived World War II. Incidentally, both HMS Lightning and HMS Legion were subsequently sunk by German torpedoes.