My cat does that when i hold my hand in front of him so i dont think its that unlikely that it was a living cat

Plenty of propaganda, but Smoky was a real cat -- was rescued from a bombed-out building after an air raid by the woman in the picture - Miss Ann Twynam of Paddington (a district of London). While I'm sure his saluting trick didn't involve taxidermy, I'm sure it involved bribery. Cats basically owned the black market in tuna during the war when pretty much everything was strictly rationed.