The Tabby of Torpedoes
Cat Memorial: This black-and-white Tabby began his military experience with the Germans in 1941 aboard the Bismark as part of Operation Rheinübung, the battleship’s first and only mission.
From there, Sam’s wartime adventures included fiery torpedo attacks and drowning crews, days and nights clinging to floating debris in frigid seas, and a series of rescues, retaliations, and ironies that make his life unique, memorable, and a testimony to how the pets in our lives represent the best of humanity when our instincts are at their worst. RIP Unsinkable Sam. Your pet obituary is unlike any other.
Pets, People, & War
Pets of all sorts have a long and storied history of showing up alongside human beings when we are at our worst. For centuries human beings trained animals – from battle horses, bomb-sniffing dogs, and passenger pigeons to seals and even beluga whales – to participate in our wars and military efforts. However, it seems like no war movie is complete without a beleaguered soldier adopting a stray kitten or puppy during a smoke break in the heat of battle.
[More pet loss advice, insights, and resources: How to Write a Pet Eulogy, Pet Loss Condolences: What to Say and How to Say It, and Life After Loss: 5 Signs It’s Time for a New Pet.]
Innocence Found Through Pets
There is a reason why this wartime contrast and juxtaposition of existence and circumstance feels profound: When human beings are at war and behaving like animals, it sometimes takes the presence of animals to remind us of our own humanity. People, after all, are animals – and our long unfortunate history of behaving like animals is a constant reminder of how thin the line is that separates our civil side from our more abhorrent and brutal tendencies.
In battle, when your goal is to kill as many human beings on the other side as possible, the innocence of an orphaned kitten or lost puppy can be the only force on earth able to break you from the trance of destruction and violence for the purpose of survival. Sam was that innocent war animal in real life. Sam was that poignant reminder, that angel from the universe, that animal soul amid human cruelty.
Imagine What Sam Saw and Felt
Just imagine the impact that Sam had on the sailors and warriors whom he encountered during his extraordinary life. Imagine those horrible, violent maritime conflicts, and the deafening noise of battle and the pervasive stench of warfare – the burning carnage, the smoldering vessels, the sounds of people screaming and writhing in pain.
And now imagine Sam. Witness to it all. Image what a cat must do to survive a human war, and how befriending people – on both sides of the war – was not an act of patriotism, fear, or hate, but a simple attempt to connect with another living thing when surrounded by death.
[More pet loss advice, insights, and resources: How to Write a Pet Eulogy, Pet Loss Condolences: What to Say and How to Say It, and Life After Loss: 5 Signs It’s Time for a New Pet.]