Based on this:
Emmy was the ship's cat on the RMS Empress of Ireland.
She was an orange tabby cat who never missed a voyage.
However, on May 28, 1914, Emmy tried to escape the ship.
The crew could not coax her aboard and the Empress left
without her. She was reportedly last seen on the roof of
the shed at Pier 27, watching her ship sail out of Quebec
City.[citation needed] Early the next morning the Empress
collided with the SS Storstad while steaming through fog at
the mouth of the St. Lawrence river and rapidly sank,
killing over 1,000 people.
The article also led me to a Wikipedia page about the Dicken Medal [1], which is fascinating.
The PDSA Dickin Medal was instituted in 1943 in the United
Kingdom by Maria Dickin to honour the work of animals in
war.