The Cat Who Raised the Ship's
Morale
| Simon (c. 1947 - November 1949) was the ship's cat who served
on the Royal Navy sloop HMS Amethyst. In 1949, during the Yangtze
Incident, he received the PDSA's Dickin Medal after surviving injuries
from a cannon shell, by raising morale and killing off a rat
infestation during the incident. Simon was found wandering the dockyards of Hong Kong in March 1948 by 17 year-old Ordinary Seaman George Hickinbottom, a member of the crew of the British frigate HMS Amethyst stationed in the city in the late 1940s. At this stage, it is thought Simon was approximately a year old, and was very undernourished and unwell. Hickinbottom smuggled the cat aboard ship, and Simon soon ingratiated himself with the crew and officers, particularly as he was adept at catching and killing the rats, which infested the lower decks. Simon rapidly gained a reputation for cheekiness, leaving presents of dead rats in sailors' beds and sleeping in the captain's cap. The crew viewed Simon as a lucky mascot, and when the ship's commander changed later in 1948, the outgoing Ian Griffiths left the cat for his successor Bernard Skinner, who took an immediate liking to the friendly cat. However, Skinner's first mission in command of the Amethyst was to travel up the Yangtze River to Nanking to replace the duty ship there, HMS Consort. Halfway up the river the ship became embroiled in the "Yangtze incident", when Chinese communist gun batteries opened fire on the frigate. One of the first rounds tore through the Captain's cabin, killing Skinner and seriously wounding Simon. The badly wounded cat crawled on deck, and was rushed to the medical bay, where the ship's surviving medical staff cleaned his burns and removed four pieces of shrapnel from Simon, who was not expected to last the night. He did manage to survive however and returned to his former duties in spite of the dislike he faced from the new captain. Whilst beached in the river the ship had become overrun with rats, and Simon took on the task of removing them with vigour, as well as being used in the sick bay to raise the morale of wounded teenage sailors. Following the ship's escape from the river, Simon became an instant celebrity, lauded in British and World news and presented with the "Animal VC", the Dickin Medal as well as a Blue Cross medal, and Amethyst campaign medal and the fanciful rank of "Able Seacat". Thousands of letters were written to him, so much that one of Amethyst's officers was detailed solely to answer Simon's post. At every port Amethyst stopped at on its route home, Simon was presented with honour, and a special welcome was made for him at Plymouth in November when the ship returned. Simon was however, like all animals entering the UK, subject to quarantine regulations and spent his time in an animal centre in Surrey. There Simon contracted a virus and, despite the attentions of medical staff and thousands of well-wishers, passed away on 28 November 1949 from a complication of the viral infection caused by his war wounds. Hundreds, including the entire crew of HMS Amethyst attended his funeral in Ilford in East London. His gravestone reads: IN
MEMORY OF "SIMON" SERVED IN H.M.S. AMETHYST MAY 1948 — SEPTEMBER 1949 AWARDED DICKIN MEDAL AUGUST 1949 DIED 28TH NOVEMBER 1949. THROUGHOUT THE YANGTZE INCIDENT HIS BEHAVIOUR WAS OF THE HIGHEST ORDER |