7. Simon the Cat
By Josh Sanburn
Monday, Mar. 21, 2011
Aboard a British Royal Navy ship sailing down China's Yangtze River, Simon the Cat — a long-time favorite of the sailors on the H.M.S. Amethyst (seen above) — was hit by shrapnel as a result of an attack by Chinese Communist forces. Simon was injured in the leg and back, and his whiskers were singed off. Some of the sailors didn't think he'd make it through the night. But eventually, Simon recuperated enough to wipe out a massive rodent infestation on board the ship, eventually taking down an enormous rat the sailors named Mao Tse Tung. Later, his exploits became known around the world; he even managed to garner a TIME obit. In August 1949, Simon was awarded the Dickin Medal, which honors animals in wartime.
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/***
Time’s Obituary for Simon the Cat
Foreign News: In Honored Memory
Monday, Dec. 12, 1949
The most respected cat in all Britain was a small, black, white-bibbed torn named Simon. As ship's cat on board the sloop H.M.S. Amethyst on her heroic voyage down China's Yangtze River last spring (TIME, May 2), Simon got his white whiskers singed by a Communist shell, his face and legs scratched by shrapnel. But throughout the Amethyst's cruise, Simon carried on in his billet, caught at least one mouse every day.
When the Amethyst got back to England, Simon was interned for the regulation six months' quarantine required of animals entering the country, but his grateful nation had not forgotten him. Reporters from far & wide came to see and photograph the solemn hero, and he was promised the Dickin Medal* for heroic animals, to be awarded by London's Lord Mayor on his release.
Last week, on the eve of getting his medal, Simon took cold, a day later died. In a dark wood coffin draped with the Union Jack, he was buried in a pet cemetery at Ilford, Essex. A wooden marker at his head bore the epitaph: "In Honored Memory of Simon, D.M."
*Created in 1943 by Britain's People's Dispensary for Sick Animals, to honor animal bravery in the armed forces, and named for the dispensary's founder, Maria Elizabeth Dickin.
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