Head over Keels actual naval stories
«Unsinkable Sam»
A sailor's routine on Bismarck,
Germany's exemplary battleship,
consisted of the following:
wake up, have breakfast,
sleep, have lunch,
take a nap,
then dinner, and go to sleep again.
But only if you were...
a cat.
And so this time,
Oscar had a substantial breakfast
and was about to go to sleep.
However,
his rest was rudely interrupted
by a shrill alarm,
and people running around and shouting.
The ship was rocking and shaking.
Oscar's instincts were screaming,
"Run away! Get out of here!"
A powerful blow sent
the panic-stricken cat flying,
and he ended up swimming
in the cold water.
Oscar showed up onboard
a British destroyer, HMS Cossack.
Life on this ship
wasn't as serene as on Bismarck.
Cossack was always on the move:
escorting convoys,
hunting submarines
or dodging their attacks.
The ship's energetic maneuvers,
tight living quarters, and noise
meant Oscar couldn't find any peace.
And when the cat finally adjusted to this
and found a cozy place
to get some sleep
a submarine launched a torpedo
that tore through the ship's bow.
A few days later,
abandoned by her crew,
Cossack sank during a storm.
Oscar was lucky again.
He was sent to port on destroyer Legion.
In the port, sailors presented the cat
to the crew of aircraft carrier Ark Royal.
"Is this the same cat from Bismarck?!"
exclaimed the commander.
"Well, old buddy, welcome aboard.
Now you're our mascot.
We'll call you Unsinkable Sam."
The cat found a nice spacious room to settle into,
from which he could observe the airplanes
taking off from the deck.
This was relaxing.
Wait, what's going on?
Not again?!
Clinging to a piece of aircraft wing
by his claws,
the cat cursed anything and everything,
especially the man
who had first brought him onboard.
A few days later, Oscar was ashore,
in the house of the Governor of Gibraltar.
Superstitious sailors
decided not to take Unsinkable Sam
to sea again,
after all,
he'd sent three ships down the drain.
The cat was more than happy with this decision.