Posts Tagged ‘Ship cats’

I have added a new story to my Cats in Hats page. This one is about a cat who worked as a milk steward on the passenger ship S.S. President Harding, which sailed from New York to Germany in the 1920s.

There was much sorrow and indignation among the men on board the USS Indiana on April 27, 1903. That day, there were about six men on the battleship’s sick list. C. Buster, the battleship cat, was also on the sick list.

“C. Buster!” the ship’s surgeon called out. Letting out a plaintive meow and hopping on three legs, the battleship cat responded to the doctor’s summons. Not able to explain his injury, the cat held up his paw and allowed the doctor to examine it…

Joe Fife (probably named for Commodore Joseph Fife, who began his naval career during the Civil War) was a prize-winning pedigree cat who lived a luxurious life in a villa in the Kingsbridge neighborhood of the Bronx.

He reportedly joined the crew of the USS President Lincoln shortly after the liner was placed into service as a WWI troop transport based at the Hoboken Port of Embarkation.

Tom the Terror was reportedly a noted figure in the United States Navy. He came from a long line of naval cats, having been born on the Cob Deck at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in 1896. All of his siblings and cousins had also honorably served the United States Navy as rat killers and mascots.

I once wrote about Tom, the famous cat that survived the explosion and sinking of the USS Maine during the Spanish-American War. The following tale is about several other seafaring cats who similarly survived naval events during the same war: these were the ship cats of the Cristóbal Colón, a Spanish cruiser that ran aground during the Battle of Santiago de Cuba.