
Ship's cat - gwern
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship%27s_cat
======
junto
Based on this:

    
    
      Emmy was the ship's cat on the RMS Empress of Ireland. 
      She was an orange tabby cat who never missed a voyage.
      However, on May 28, 1914, Emmy tried to escape the ship. 
      The crew could not coax her aboard and the Empress left 
      without her. She was reportedly last seen on the roof of 
      the shed at Pier 27, watching her ship sail out of Quebec 
      City.[citation needed] Early the next morning the Empress 
      collided with the SS Storstad while steaming through fog at 
      the mouth of the St. Lawrence river and rapidly sank, 
      killing over 1,000 people.
    

I have decided to disembark any ship when the cat leaves.

The article also led me to a Wikipedia page about the Dicken Medal [1], which
is fascinating.

    
    
      The PDSA Dickin Medal was instituted in 1943 in the United
      Kingdom by Maria Dickin to honour the work of animals in 
      war.
    

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dickin_Medal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dickin_Medal)

~~~
belorn
Please, what number of cats did not leave the ship before a fatal voyage?

Before one start to worship cats as some divine creates that can foretell the
future, maybe some critical thoughts are in order.

~~~
lotsofmangos
Silence Heretic! You dare to question Chairman Miaow?

~~~
gwern
I've read that your pun is unnecessary as 'mao' already can mean 'cat' in
Chinese.

------
msane
The internet cats on Hacker News are of a classier variety than those you find
at more run-of-the-mill pages, requesting cheese hamburgers and speaking
unskillfully. These cats have Wikipedia articles, with footnotes. Some are
decorated veterans.

------
visakanv
This is one of those odd moments where everybody mysteriously agrees that
something... is interesting.

Relevant:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_Mouser_to_the_Cabinet_Off...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_Mouser_to_the_Cabinet_Office)

~~~
NamTaf
This is one of those very many quintessentially British imperial traditions
that I adore

Unrelated to the above but relevant to the parent:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nils_Olav](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nils_Olav)

Edit: ok this takes the cake, especially _temporary demotion_ :
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Windsor_(goat)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Windsor_\(goat\))

~~~
masklinn
> Unrelated to the above but relevant to the parent:
> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nils_Olav](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nils_Olav)

> […] On 15 August 2008 he was awarded a knighthood. He is the first penguin
> to receive such an honour in the Norwegian army.

Wait, other penguins have previously been knighted in non-Norwegian armies? Is
there an Order of Penguin Knights out there?

> Edit: ok this takes the cake, especially temporary demotion:
> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Windsor_(goat)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Windsor_\(goat\))

The reasons for temporary demotion are hilarious:

> [D]espite being ordered to keep in line, he refused to obey. He failed to
> keep in step,[16] and tried to headbutt a drummer. […]

> Billy was charged with "unacceptable behaviour", "lack of decorum" and
> "disobeying a direct order", and had to appear before his commanding
> officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Huw James. Following a disciplinary hearing, he
> was demoted to fusilier.

As were the consequences:

> The change meant that _other fusiliers in the regiment no longer had to
> stand to attention when Billy walked past_ , as they had to when he was a
> lance corporal.

edit:

the end paragraph about other goat troubles in the british army is mind-
blowing in its britishness:

> At one time a royal goat was "prostituted" by being offered for stud
> services by the regiment's serving goat major to a Wrexham goat breeder.
> First charged with lèse majesté, the goat major was ultimately court-
> martialled under the lesser charge of "disrespect to an officer" and reduced
> in rank. The goat major claimed he did it out of compassion for the goat,
> but this failed to impress the court.

> Another royal fusilier goat earned the nickname "the rebel", after he butted
> a colonel while he was stooped over fixing his uniform's trouser-strap. The
> incident was described as a "disgraceful act of insubordination."

~~~
daledavies
Can't believe I've just seen Wrexham mentioned on Hacker News! That's where I
grew up :)

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jkldotio
I agree this submission is somewhat odd for HN, but as it's here I'm going to
take the opportunity to recommend the novel Blitzcat to anyone with kids. As
the reviews point out it's unique in literature to have an animal main
character in a non-Disney or cute style, especially exploring parts of WWII. I
haven't read it for two decades but the article immediately brought it to mind
as something I enjoyed.

[http://www.amazon.co.uk/Blitzcat-Robert-
Westall/dp/033039861...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Blitzcat-Robert-
Westall/dp/033039861X)

~~~
Wicher
Unique is too strong a word, for instance, there's Watership Down
(recommended):

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watership_down](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watership_down)

~~~
willyt
White Fang by Jack London is excellent. Also the original Jungle Book stories
by Rudyard Kipling are beautiful as well, if a little colonial in places. My
favourite when I was little was Rikki-Tikki-Tavi. Both are in the public
domain so can be downloaded for free from various places, including iBooks.

~~~
madaxe_again
Don't forget The Call of the Wild, also by London - fabulous book.

------
kbenson
_Camouflage was the ship 's cat aboard an LST. He was known for chasing enemy
tracer rounds across the deck._

That sounds about right.

~~~
jtms
This was my favorite of the "famous ship cats" section. Anyone who has ever
owned both a cat and a laser pointer will immediately recognize this as highly
probable.

------
mtrn
On a similar note:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_cat](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_cat)

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TheBiv
The article mentions that the Royal Navy banned cats on the grounds of hygiene
in the 1970's, does anyone know if the US followed suit?

~~~
pmorici
I don't know about the Navy but I was at an airbase in Afghanistan and some
people were feeding a cat that was hanging around our building. An email went
out ordering people to not feed the cat. As an incentive to comply the NCO in
charge of the area said that if the cat feeding didn't stop it would be
killed, not sure if he was serious but they weren't pleased with the prospect
of having a cat around.

~~~
fit2rule
Cats are known intelligence agents. Its probably not a good thing to have
strays wandering around your base .. you never know what they might report
back to their owner..

~~~
mildtrepidation
This would be more worrisome if they weren't so likely to report
misinformation... just for fun.

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coin
+1 for SSL version of Wikipedia

~~~
ColdHawaiian
Why would using SSL makes a difference, if all we're doing is just reading an
article? I don't understand.

~~~
harshreality
Profiling people based on what wikipedia pages they view is not a difficult
thing to do.

~~~
corin_
Https doesn't encrypt the URL you are reading, which kind of gives away what
content you're reading when it comes to wikipedia.

~~~
datr
Yes it does. Your dns request for the hostname and the ip address you connect
to might give away the fact that you're reading wikipedia but the actual path
will be encrypted.

~~~
stevedekorte
Unfortunately, this is of no help if Wikipedia or it's hosting provider (and
therefore every machine it runs on) is compromised.

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NAFV_P
Shipcat - a potential name for antivirus software.

Here is a video of a cat called "Goliath" (real name Hercules)-

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fN7eXTz35dI](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fN7eXTz35dI)

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ivanca
They should have a cat for every barrack in the army, to reduce a bit the
cases of PTSD if nothing else.

~~~
hisham_hm
Yeah, let's keep soldiers doing inhumane, abhorrent and traumatizing things...
but at least let's give them cats.

~~~
ivanca
? So, let's do anything for the soldiers and just focus on ending all wars
even if is not a realistic expectation? Right on bro.

------
gmfawcett
The Faculty of Science at my university used to have (still has?) two office-
cats named Teaching and Research.

(Of course, a faculty office isn't remotely like a battleship: there's far
less warfare on a battleship!)

------
daniyaln
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsinkable_Sam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsinkable_Sam)

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BigTuna
Thanks for the Monday smile, submitter.

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vonskippy
Why is this on HN? Trolling the Wikipedia site might be an interesting hobby,
but I don't see in any way how it fits HN.

~~~
oneandoneis2
It's on HN because somebody submitted it, and it's on the front page because
enough people up-voted it to get it there.

That really is about as good an explanation as you're going to get :)

~~~
hoektoe
The cat's have finally made a through. D-Day for cats on HN :) Interesting,
albeit nothing to do with HN

