Tony Dalton related his first hand experiences with a ship’s cat:
Tony Dalton related his first hand experiences with a ship’s cat:
“Whilst serving on the Norwegian-flag tanker “Rona Star”, in 1965, I adopted a stray kitten in Mina al Ahmadi which took up residence in the radio room. It refused point blank ever to set foot on shore, despite being bodily carried, many times, down the gangway onto the land. The cat would never leave the ship until the night of June 15th, 1965, when the “Rona Star” was in the wet dock at Rotterdam’s Verolme shipyard, undergoing tank-cleaning. The moggy became extremely agitated, mewling and howling, and left the radio room. I watched it from the cabin window as it scooted down the gangway and disappeared. No sooner had it reached the shore than the ship exploded in a ball of fire and 16 persons were killed. To this day, I swear the damned thing sensed the forthcoming disaster. I never saw it again.”
http://messybeast.com/moggycat/warcat.htm
(via @interdome)