Simon: The Ship's Cat Who Earned a War Medal

In March 1948, a scrawny stray kitten was found wandering the dockyards of Hong Kong by a 17-year-old Royal Navy seaman named George Hickinbottom. He tucked the cat under his arm and smuggled it aboard HMS Amethyst. Nobody stopped him. The cat - soon named Simon - made himself at home.

A Cat Goes to War

Simon earned his keep quickly. HMS Amethyst had a rat problem, and Simon had a solution. He became notorious on the lower decks for depositing dead rats in sailors' beds and sleeping, uninvited, in the captain's hat. The crew adored him.

On April 20, 1949, everything changed. As HMS Amethyst sailed up the Yangtze River to relieve another vessel at Nanking, a Chinese People's Liberation Army battery opened fire without warning. The barrage killed more than 20 sailors. One shell tore directly through the captain's cabin, where Simon had been sleeping. The ship's medical officer found him badly burned and bleeding, and removed four pieces of shrapnel from his legs and back. He was not expected to survive the night.

100 Days on the River

Simon survived. Within weeks, despite his wounds, he was back on patrol. HMS Amethyst was now trapped - held at gunpoint on the Yangtze with dwindling food supplies and a crew under constant stress. Rats began raiding the stores. Simon went to work.

His most celebrated kill was a large, aggressive rat the crew had nicknamed "Mao Tse-tung." When Simon and the rat came face to face in the hold, Simon killed it outright. The crew cheered. They formally promoted him to the rank of Able Seacat - a Royal Navy pun on Able Seaman - and issued him an official service record.

Beyond rat-catching, Simon did something harder to measure. He visited the sick bay every day, curling up with injured sailors and sitting with men too ill to move. Lieutenant Commander John Kerans later wrote that Simon's presence had been essential to keeping morale from collapsing during the 101-day ordeal.

Escape and Honor

On the night of July 30, 1949, HMS Amethyst made a daring escape, running at full speed downriver under cover of darkness past Chinese gun positions. Simon was aboard. The ship reached safety.

On August 10, 1949, the PDSA announced that Simon had been awarded the Dickin Medal - the highest honor bestowed on animals for wartime service, established in 1943. The citation praised him for ridding HMS Amethyst of pestilence and vermin and raising the spirits of the crew under fire. He remains the only cat ever to receive it.

He Never Got to Wear It

All animals arriving in Britain faced mandatory quarantine. Simon was sent to a boarding kennel in Surrey. The stress of the crossing, combined with war wounds that had permanently damaged his heart, left him vulnerable. He contracted a viral infection and died on November 28, 1949, aged about two years old.

The formal medal ceremony had been scheduled for December. Lieutenant Commander Kerans and his wife accepted the Dickin Medal on Simon's behalf. Hundreds attended his funeral at the PDSA Ilford Animal Cemetery in east London - including the entire crew of HMS Amethyst.