Charles T. Semours was born in Great Britain in 1885. He was a salesman and in 1915, he had been conducting business in Buffalo, New York, in the United States of America.
To return to Great Britain, he booked second cabin passage on the May sailing of the Lusitania from New York to Liverpool and having left Buffalo, he arrived at the Cunard berth at Pier 54 on the west side of New York City, on the morning of 1st May 1915, in time for the liner’s scheduled 10 o’clock departure. Once on board, however, he had to wait - like all the other passengers and crew - until 12.27 p.m. before the liner actually sailed, because she had had to embark passengers, crew and cargo from the Anchor Lines vessel the S.S. Cameronia which the British Admiralty had requisitioned for war service as a troop ship.
Then, six days out of New York on the afternoon of 7th May, and within sight of the coast of southern Ireland, the Lusitania was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-20. At that stage of her return voyage, she was only about 250 miles away from the safety of her home port.
Unfortunately, Charles Semours lost his life as a result of this action and as his body was never recovered and identified afterwards, he has no known grave. He was aged 30 years.
Cunard Records, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.