How a brave ship’s cat became a WWII legend
When HMAS Perth was sunk by Japanese torpedoes in 1942, fewer than half of the 681 men – and one cat – made it to shore. Her extraordinary survival with the help of a group of Aussie POWs is detailed in a new book.
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Red Lead the naval cat must have used up every one of her nine lives.
She was the captain’s cat on board Australian warship HMAS Perth when it was sunk by Japanese torpedoes off the coast of Java.
Red Lead is the subject of the latest episode of the free In Black and White podcast on Australia’s forgotten characters, available now.
Her remarkable story is told in a new book, Red Lead, by well-known author Roland Perry.
Perry says Red Lead was brought aboard HMAS Perth as a kitten by the captain in Sydney in 1941 and earned the crew’s respect through her skills as a prodigious ratter and empathetic companion.
But he believes the kitten originally came to Australia with a teak wood importer, and was bred by a lady known as “the cat woman of Mae Sot” on the Thai-Burma border.
On March 1, 1942, in the Battle of Sunda Strait, before Captain Hector Waller followed the time-honoured tradition of going down with his ship, he insisted Red Lead be carried off to safety.
Her minder, Able Seaman Bob Collins, leapt off the ship as it sank with Red Lead tucked inside his life jacket, and pushed her onto a small skiff, before losing sight of her.
Of the 681 men aboard HMAS Perth, 353 men drowned, while 328 men – and one cat – made it to safety.
Perry believes Red Lead probably made it to the shore several kilometres away drifting alone on the skiff.
Once ashore, Red Lead found a small band of Australian survivors from the sinking of HMAS Perth, and attached herself to a petty officer, who is given the pseudonym Dan Bolt in the book.
But the men were soon captured by Japanese soldiers and held as POWs for 3½ years, including time in Changi and working as slave labour on the Thai-Burma Railway, with Red Lead their constant companion.
The courageous cat survived several terrifying encounters with native wildlife, including once attacking a king cobra after the POWs inadvertently set up camp near a snake nest while working on the Thai-Burma Railway.
“One king cobra attacked one of the men and bit him on the calf and sank the fangs in for a long time; as someone pointed out they can kill an elephant,” Perry says.
“Red Lead, in the middle of this, dived in under the snake’s body and neck and gripped onto it.”
The POW was killed, while Red Lead was flung 5m clear by the king cobra and hit a tree, leaving her dazed and close to unconscious.
“So everyone had incredible admiration for this cat,” Perry says.
“It did recover within about 48 hours.”
Another time, Red Lead flew at a tiger terrorising the POWs’ camp in Thailand.
And she nearly died after she was bitten by another snake.
Her story finally came full circle when, in an incredible coincidence, “Dan Bolt”, working as a medico, was sent to the town where Red Lead was born, and made it his mission to track down “the cat woman of Mae Sot”.
It was there Red Lead was reunited with her mother, Nuarn, several siblings, and the captivating young woman who bred her, Usa.
To find out what happened next, listen to the interview with Roland Perry in the first episode of our series on Australia’s greatest war animals in the free In Black and White podcast on Australia’s forgotten characters on Apple/iTunes, Spotify, web or your favourite platform.
And listen to our previous podcast episodes relating to World War II including the story of the wartime nurse who survived a massacre by playing dead, and how wireless pioneer ‘Mrs Mac’ and her Morse code ‘girls’ helped win the war.
See In Black & White in the Herald Sun newspaper Monday to Friday for more stories and photos from Victoria’s past.