Timofej Lucko was born in Imperial Russian in 1895. In 1915, he was resident of the United States of America, having settled in Hastings-on-Hudson, Westchester County, New York, where he obtained employment as a labourer. He was 5’11” tall.
In the spring of 1915, perhaps because of patriotic duty and the poor performance of the Imperial Russian Army against the armies of the Central Powers, he decided to return to his homeland and as a result booked third class passage on the Lusitania’s May sailing for England, for the major part of his journey home.
He arrived at the Cunard berth at Pier 54 in New York harbour on the morning of 1st May 1915, in time to board the liner for her scheduled 10.00 a.m. sailing. This was then delayed until the early afternoon, because she had to embark passengers, crew and cargo from the Anchor Liner Cameronia, which had been requisitioned by the British Admiralty for war service as a troop ship. Just six days later, on the afternoon of 7th May, the Lusitania was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-20, twelve miles off the coast of southern Ireland and about 250 miles away from her Liverpool destination.
Timofej Lucko was one of 69 Russian nationals on board, and unfortunately, he was one of 40 of them who lost their lives as a result of this action. His body was later recovered from the sea, however and landed at Queenstown, where it was taken to one of the temporary mortuaries set up there. It was then given the reference number 96, pending a positive identification. Once this had been carried out, however, it was buried, on 10th May 1915 in The Old Church Cemetery, about two miles north of the town, in Mass Grave C, Third Row, Lower Tier, where it lies today. It was on this day that most of the victims of the sinking were buried following a long funeral procession which began outside the Cunard office at Lynch’s Quay on the waterfront in Queenstown. Timofej Lucko was aged 20 years.
On 4th January 1916, property recovered from his body, which had probably aided its identification, was handed over to the Imperial Russian Consul General at the London Consulate at 30, Bedford Square. This consisted of two 1000 rouble bills, one $2 bill, two $1 bills and a photograph.
Cunard Records, PRO BT 100/345, UniLiv.D92/8-10, UniLiv. PR13/6, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.