On May 27, 1941, the biggest, fastest, and most powerful fighting ship ever built, the Bismarck, met her
untimely and inglorious end. Despite the fact that her life lasted less than two weeks, books have been
written, songs have been sung, and movies have been made about her. On the day she sank, nearly 2,000
of her crew of 2200 lost their lives.
What few survivors there were found themselves rescued by British ships that had been involved in the
fight. Most of the survivors were picked up by two British ships, and a handful managed to be rescued by
one of their own vessels. One lone survivor was rescued by the British destroyer HMS Cossack. Found
floating alone on a wooden board, the last surviving member of the Bismarck was fished from the water and
for him the war was over. Or so it seemed.
In ancient times it is not unheard of for defeated enemy combatants to switch sides during the middle of a
conflict, but it is extremely rare for this to happen in modern times. However, in the case of one survivor of
the German battleship Bismarck, switching sides is exactly what happened. In the beginning, the surviving
sailor, whose name was Oscar, certainly considered himself to be a prisoner, but within a short period of
time he offered himself to the His Majesty's navy, which the British, much to the surprise of us all, were only
too happy to accept.
Oscar, once a member of the German Kriegsmarine, now found himself in the service of His Majesty's Royal
Navy, and so would remain until the end of the war.
Oscar's first assignment found himself remaining with the ship that rescued him, the HMS Cossack, on
which he ailed for the next several months as it carried out convoy escort duties in the Mediterranean and
North Atlantic. In October of 1941, the Cossack was escorting a convoy from Gibraltar to the United Kingdom
when she was severely damaged by a torpedo fired by a German submarine. With her being badly damaged
and in imminent danger of sinking the crew of the Cossack were transferred to the destroyer HMS Legion,
after which an attempt having been made to tow the badly listing Cossack back to Gibraltar, the Cossack
sank beneath the waves of the Atlantic Ocean just west of Gibraltar. Although the Cossack had lost 159 of
her crew, Oscar was not among them, thus he once again survived the sinking of a vessel on which he had
served.
Oscar was soon thereafter transferred to the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal, which had ironically been
involved in the destruction of Bismarck. However, when returning from Malta in November of 1941, the Ark
Royal was torpedoed, and like the three previous ships that had floated underneath Oscar, she slipped
quietly beneath the ocean waves. Oscar was once again fished from the open ocean, and just like the first
time was found floating alone on a piece of wood from the ship.
Oscar's next assignment would be aboard the HMS Legion, on which he would serve for a short time until
the Legion was sunk, after which Oscar was assigned to the HMS Lightning. Alas, the Lightning herself
would suffer the same fate, and Oscar would once again find himself adrift on the open ocean and have to
be fished from the sea.
In all, Oscar would serve aboard five vessels, all of which were sunk, and he would survive all five. As a
matter of fact, so far as is known, Oscar is the only sailor from either side to have survived the sinking a
five ships -- quite a feat indeed!
In the end, Oscar would retire from the British Royal navy with honors and live out his days in a seamen's
home in Belfast, Ireland, until he died of old age in 1955.
With all that he went through Oscar managed to pick up a nickname. He became known, for a while, the
world over as "Unsinkable Sam."
Not bad for a black and white tortie!
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