Can you pin a medal on a cat? ='o'= ♫

The Royal Navy used to encourage its ships to adopt a ship's cat, believing they were good for morale and vermin control, though sadly since 1975 they are forbidden.

• Simon, ship's cat of the HMS Amethyst, was wounded by shrapnel in the Yangtze Incident of 1948. In recognition of his valour, he was awarded three medals, and promoted to the rank of Able Seacat.

• Oscar was rescued from the wreckage of the German battleship Bismarck by the HMS Cossack. They adopted him as their ship's cat, until, five months later, the Cossack too was sunk. Oscar survived, and was transferred to the HMS Ark Royal... which was sunk two weeks later. This time, Oscar was found clinging to a floating board 'angry, but quite unharmed.' He was renamed 'Unsinkable Sam', and retired to Belfast, where he eventually died, ten years after the end of the war, of old age.

• Beauty, ship's cat of the HMS Black Prince, was present at the Normandy landings, during which she occupied herself giving birth to three kittens.

• TBC-unusually, the gunship HMSGB-7 was never named, and nor was its cat, who was known as 'TBC'. Which stood for 'That Bloody Cat'.

• Joey -In 1924, the HMS Hood did not have a ship's cat. It had Joey... the ship's wallaby.

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