Their legacy lives on.
Courtesy of Scot Christenson.
Christenson spent years collecting stories of the cats who served in the Navy.
Of all the cases he found, his favorite anecdote is the tale of “Mis Hap.”
Mis Hap was a tiny kitten found by a Marine during the Korea War, Christenson told Insider. The animal had just been orphaned, and her human rescuer named her Mis Hap because she had “been born in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
The Marine was photographed feeding the cat with a medicine dropper in a heartrending photo that was picked up by dozens of newspapers around the globe, according to Christenson.
Prior to Mis Hap’s discovery, the Marine in question was at risk of being court-martialed after submitting one of his own photographs of wounded Marines to a photo contest, flouting military censors that had banned the publication of such content at the time.
But the marine’s newfound newspaper fame ultimately spared him from the charges and yielded hundreds of marriage proposals from women across the country who were moved by his tender care toward Mis Hap, according to Christenson.
Mis Map went on to become the mascot of headquarters in Korea.
Her Marine eventually brought her back to Chicago where she lived a long, happy life.
