Daniel Oginski was born in Imperial Russia in 1888. Some time, probably before the Great War, he had left there and having crossed the Atlantic Ocean to the United States of America, he settled in Hartford, Connecticut, where he found employment as a labourer.
In the spring of 1915, however, he made the decision to return home, possibly because of the dire situation facing the forces of the Tsar on the eastern front. Consequently, he booked third class passage on the May sailing of the Lusitania from New York to Liverpool for the first part of his journey home. Having left Hartford sometime in April, he boarded the liner at the Cunard berth at Pier 54 in New York - with ticket number 38938 - on the morning of 1st May 1915, in time for the liner’s scheduled 10.00 a.m. departure. This was then delayed until the early afternoon of that day so that she could load cargo and embark passengers and crew from the Anchor Lines vessel the S.S. Cameronia which the British Admiralty had requisitioned for war service as a troop ship.
Six days later, in the afternoon of 7th May, the Lusitania was torpedoed off the coast of southern Ireland, by the German submarine U-20 and sank in just 18 minutes. At that stage of her voyage, she was only about 250 miles away from the safety of her home port.
Altogether there were 68 Russian nationals on board the Lusitania. Of these, 39 were killed and 29 survived the sinking. Unfortunately, Daniel Oginski was one of those who lost his life as a result of the submarine action and as his body was never recovered from the sea and identified afterwards, he has no known grave. He was aged 27 years.
Cunard Records, PRO BT 100/345, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.