The Black Cats of Amherst in World War I

As part of our ongoing but extremely occasional series on cats in military insignia, today we bring you the story of a group of young men from Amherst, Massachusetts, who volunteered as ambulance drivers for the French army in the First World War. They came to be known as the Black Cats, after the distinctive symbol they chose: a black cat in full-on scary pose, with its back arched and tail pointing straight up. This symbol may have been selected for good luck, writes amateur historian Jim Hamilton. Although in much of the US today, the common superstition is that black cats bring bad luck, let us not forget that cats of all sorts of colors have been credited with (or blamed for) bringing all sorts of luck in different places and times.

The black cat symbol of SSU 539.
Used with permission.

So, what kind of luck did the Amherst Black Cats have? Let’s find out…but first we must thank Jim Hamilton, who runs the Amherst Black Cats Twitter account and graciously agreed to tell us a little more about the history of this unit. It was through this Twitter account that we first learned of these young men from Amherst.

The Black Cats answer the call

The group that would become known as the Black Cats got its start on June 6, 1917, when several students and recent graduates of Amherst College, as well as a few others, signed on to drive ambulances for the French army. That summer, the unit headed to Allentown, Pennsylvania, to train at Camp Crane, which was actually on the site of the Allentown Fairgrounds. A photo recently posted on the Black Cats’ Twitter account shows that their barracks was the Bantams and Pigeons building. Their training included driving lessons and medical procedures. On August 6, they boarded the SS San Jacinto for the crossing to Europe, arriving at St. Nazaire, France, just over two weeks later, on August 21.

The entrance to Camp Crane, 1918.
The Amherst volunteers arrived here in summer 1917.
US Army photo.
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Black Cats on the Western Front

Officially known as Section Sanitaire États-Unis 539, or SSU 539, the Black Cats were sent to the war’s Western Front. They served with four French army groups:

• The 47th Chasseurs Alpins
• The 27th Division Infantry (briefly)
• The 5th Division
• The 4th Army (briefly)

Driving Ford Model T ambulances with their unit’s emblem on the side, the Black Cats participated in three major offensives in 1918:

• the Aisne-Marne Offensive
• the Oise-Aisne Offensive
• the Ypres-Lys Offensive

They also participated in a few minor operations. For their actions in evacuating the wounded, often in difficult conditions, the Black Cats were awarded the Croix de Guerre and were also entitled to wear the Fourragère.

Regarding luck, theirs seems to have been good. In the course of their service, only one member of the Black Cats was wounded and three were gassed. They all recovered. One member of the unit said this in a letter home:

We are the original horseshoe section, if there ever was one. Think of having been in a year with only one man slightly wounded! I think it’s the black cat on our cars, although that didn’t prevent a shell from ruining Riefler’s car, just after he was safe in a dug-out. I know it takes a lot of narrow escapes to get a man, but we’ve had an unusual number of them, every one of us.

Ambulance Corps training (not SSU 539)
at Camp Crane, Allentown, PA, 1918.
Photo by unknown USAAS photographer.
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Black Cats after the war

Following the Armistice that was signed on November 11, 1918, the Black Cats were stationed in Belgium and Germany before sailing for home in March 1919. They arrived back in the US on April 2. On April 23, a group of them marched from the Amherst train station to the college and presented the unit’s flag to the college president. The following year, they published a unit history (Amherst has two copies of it in their archive), and going forward, they maintained a chain letter of news updates for another ten years or so. College reunions provided an opportunity for the men to meet up in person.

Now, a century later, the Black Cats’ history continues to be written, as Jim Hamilton is finishing an early draft of a book that he plans to publish later this year. He will also be participating in a panel called “Amherst at War” at the reunion in May of this year. The Black Cat banner, which resides in the Amherst College archive, is in delicate condition, and he is hoping that it will be restored, a process that may involve some fundraising from alumni and Black Cat descendants.

Sources

Our main source, Jim Hamilton, is an amateur historian whose books include “The Writing 69^th,” the story of a group of war correspondents, including Walter Cronkite and Andy Rooney, who covered the 8^th Air Force out of England during World War II. His current research is for a book to be called “The Black Cats of Amherst,” which is about the World War I ambulance unit that his grandfather served in. For more information on Jim and his writing projects, please visit www.greenharbor.com.

Additional sources:

McFeely, William S. “The Black Cats of Amherst.” Amherst Magazine, Spring 2010. https://www.amherst.edu/amherst-story/magazine/issues/2010spring/blackcats

Ginn, Richard V. N. “World War I: The Ambulance Service.” The History of the US Army Medical Service Corps. 1977. http://history.amedd.army.mil/booksdocs/HistoryofUSArmyMSC/chapter2.html

Felix the Cat and the Tomcatters of the US Navy

Felix the Cat with Charlie Chaplin in

“Felix in Hollywood” (1923).

Public Domain.

 Some cats are cultural icons, and the white-faced black cat named Felix is certainly one of them. Felix the Cat has been around for nearly a century now, and his image has appeared in many contexts, including as a military mascot. Today we take a brief look at Felix the Cat as an emblem gracing the patches and planes of the US Navy’s Strike Fighter Squadron 31.

Why Felix?

Insignia for US Navy Fighting
Squadron 6 (later VF-31),
ca. 1935.
National Air and Space Museum.

Felix the Cat first appeared as "Master Tom" in a 1919 short directed by Otto Messmer. Felix went on to star in many more films, using his clever smarts to outwit basically everyone he encountered. The generation that fought World War II knew him as “a courageous feline who would never give up,” Laura Vocelle writes (p. 327). Plus, the word felix in Latin means “lucky” or “successful.” So it is really no surprise that Felix’s image and attitude were adopted for military insignia.

An F4B-4 with Felix the Cat emblem.

Photo by Bill Larkins 

[CC BY-SA 2.0, via WikimediaCommons.

Origins of the Tomcatters

The strike fighter squadron now known as VFA-31, or the Tomcatters, began back in 1935 as the VF-1B Shooting Stars. The squadron went through several designations (the US Navy site lists them all), with Felix displayed on the squadron’s planes and patches almost from the beginning. He is shown running while holding a bomb with a lit fuse. Felix the Cat became the squadron’s official mascot in 1946. They became known as the Tomcatters in 1948.

Lieutenant “Butch” O’Hare in a Grumman F4F-3 Wildcat,

with the Felix the Cat emblem visible on the left.

Photograph taken at Naval Air Station, Hawaii,

April 10, 1942.

US Navy. Public Domain.

The squadron was at Pearl Harbor, aboard the USS Enterprise, on December 7, 1941, and was involved in several crucial battles in the Pacific. Lieutenant Commander Edward “Butch” O’Hare, the navy’s first flying ace and the first navy man to receive the Medal of Honor in World War II, flew with the squadron.

After World War II, VF-31 was involved in the Korean War and Vietnam War.

F-4J Phantom lands aboard the USS Saratoga, January 8, 1980.
It's hard to see, but Felix the Cat is about midway along the plane.

By Service Depicted: Navy Camera Operator: Robert l. Lawson
(ID:DNSN8204480) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Into the 21st century

VFA-31 and Felix the Cat have flown over Afghanistan and Iraq during the recent conflicts in those countries. These days, their headquarters is Naval Air Station Oceana, and they’re flying the F/A-18E Super Hornet.

Given their distinguished history, we can’t help but think that the smart, cunning cartoon cat named Felix might have brought them some luck.

Two F/A-18 Super Hornets over Afghanistan,

December 15, 2008. You can see the Felix the Cat

emblem on the tail of the near plane (note the Santa hat).

By Staff Sgt. Aaron Allmon, U.S. Air Force

[Public domain], via WikimediaCommons.

Sources

US Navy. STRKFITRON Three One. “History.” 2013.  http://www.public.navy.mil/AIRFOR/vfa31/Pages/History.aspx

L. A. Vocelle. Revered and Reviled: A Complete History of the Domestic Cat. Great Cat Publications, 2016.

Wikipedia. “VFA-31.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VFA-31

Wildcats Go to War: Cat Insignia of the US Army’s 81st Infantry Division

Wildcat insignia of the
US Army's 81st Infantry Division.
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

You might forget this sometimes when you’re petting your big lazy tabby who mostly likes to nap a lot, but cats can get pretty fierce. So it’s not so unusual to see cats used on military insignia. Of course we’re talking mainly about wildcats of the large variety—tigers and panthers and such—but our smaller wild cousins have been featured on insignia too. Take, for example, the patch of the US Army’s 81^st Infantry Division, otherwise known as the Wildcat Division.

 The US Army’s first divisional patch

Insignia of the various units of the
81st Division in World War I,
US Army (Base Printing Plant, 29th Engrs.,  1919)
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons; 

The 81^st Infantry Division was first formed in 1917, during World War I. The division, originally called the Stonewall Division, was organized at Camp Jackson, South Carolina, and did some training near Wildcat Creek. The unit took its new name from that creek. Another story says that some of the soldiers trapped a wildcat (we think it must have been a bobcat) and kept it as a mascot.

The patch—a black cat on an olive-green circle—appeared in 1918, when the soldiers started wearing them on the uniforms. After some, uh, conversations, the patch was approved by General John J. Pershing. (It had been unauthorized until then.) This was the army’s first distinctive divisional patch.

The division also adopted the motto “Obedience, Loyalty, Courage.” (Obedience is not one of the first things we think of when we think of cats, but I digress.)

The wildcat insignia basically served two purposes: It identified soldiers as belonging to the 81^st Division, and it gave them a sense of pride and helped bond the unit together. They created the same design in different colors to indicate the various parts of the division: headquarters, infantry, artillery, the signal squadron, and the all-important supply train.

A long history of service

Modern 81st Regional Readiness Command
Wildcat desert shoulder patch.
US Army [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. 

The Wildcats fought in France in World War I and in the Pacific in World War II. The division was disbanded between the wars and again in 1946. In 1967, the 81^st US Army Reserve Command was formed, and some of its units were sent to Vietnam. The Wildcats also provided relief after Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and again in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina. Under the designation the 81^st Regional Readiness Command, Wildcats were deployed after 9/11 during Operations Noble Eagle, Enduring Freedom, and Iraqi Freedom.

And through it all, the soldiers of the 81^st have always been Wildcats and have honored their slogan: Wildcats Never Quit.

Sources

81^st Wildcat Association 

Wikipedia