Maxim Antanow Perka was born in Tsarist Russia in 1888. Perhaps wishing to improve his economic position, he had left there probably before the outbreak of the Great War, and having crossed the Atlantic Ocean, he settled in Canada, where, presumably, he found employment.
By the spring of 1915, however, the Imperial Russian forces were faring very badly against those of the Central Powers on the eastern front and possibly being mindful of his patriotic duty he decided to return home.
Consequently, he booked third class passage on the May sailing of the Lusitania from New York to Liverpool for the first major part of his journey home. Having left Canada some time in April, he arrived at the Cunard berth at Pier 54 in New York, on the morning of 1st May 1915, with ticket number 83876, in time to board the liner for her scheduled 10.00 a.m. departure. This was then delayed until the early afternoon as she had to load cargo and embark passengers and crew from the Anchor Lines steamer the S.S. Cameronia which the British Admiralty had requisitioned for war service as a troop ship at the end of April.
Six days later, in the early 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 fourteen hours steaming time away from the safety of her home port.
Altogether there were 68 Russian nationals on board the Lusitania - all passengers - there were no known Russian crew members. Of these, 39 were killed and 29 survived the sinking. Maxim Perka was one of the lucky ones who survived and having been rescued from the sea, he was landed at Queenstown. Some Russian survivors later complained to The Russian Consul General in Liverpool about their poor treatment at the hands of the British Authorities there and it is to be hoped that Perka was not one of these!
It is not known if he ever got back to his homeland or if he did, if he survived the war and the subsequent major revolutions in Russia. He was aged 27 years at the time of the Lusitania’s sinking.
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