Emilian Iwanuk is believed to have been born in Imperial Russia in 1888. Some time before the Great War, he had emigrated to the United States of America, and settled in New York, N.Y., where he had presumably obtained employment.
In the spring of 1915, however, like many other Russian nationals in America, he had become alarmed at the critical situation of the Czarist Army against the forces of the Central Powers on the eastern front of the fighting in Europe. As a consequence, he booked third class passage on the Lusitania’s May sailing for England, on the main part of his journey home.
He then boarded the liner on the morning of 1st May 1915 at the Cunard berth at Pier 54 in New York port, in time for her scheduled 10.00 a.m. sailing. This sailing was then delayed until the early afternoon as she had to embark passengers, crew and cargo from the S.S. Cameronia, which had been requisitioned by the British Admiralty for war service as a troop ship, at the end of April. Then, just six days out of New York, on the afternoon of 7th May, the
Lusitania was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-20,
within sight of the coast of southern Ireland and only hours away from her Liverpool home port and destination.
There were 68 Russian nationals on board at the time and Emilian Iwanuk was fortunate enough to be amongst the 29 who survived. Having been rescued from the sea, he was landed at Queenstown and hopefully treated well by the authorities there, because other survivors were later to complain to their ambassador in Liverpool of their poor treatment. It is not known whether or not Mr. Iwanuk ever completed his journey to his homeland or survived the war! He was aged 27 years at the time of the sinking.
One of the other Russian third class passengers on board the Lusitania who was travelling from Jamaica, New York State and who perished in the sinking was called Peter Ivannik. As his surname, like that of Emilian Iwanuk was anglicised from the original Russian, it is possible that it was originally the same as Iwanuk’s and they may have been related.
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