Peter Ivannik was believed to have been born in Imperial Russia in 1881, but by the spring of 1915, he had already left there and crossed the Atlantic Ocean to the United States of America, to settle in Jamaica, New York, where he found employment as a labourer.
However, perhaps mindful of the desperate situation of the Russian forces against those of the Central Powers on the eastern front of the fighting in Europe, 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 part of his journey there. Having boarded the liner at the Cunard berth at Pier 54 in New York, on the morning of 1st May 1915, in time for her scheduled 10.00 a.m. departure, he then had to wait until the 12.27 p.m. of that day, before she sailed. This was because she had to load cargo passengers and crew from Anchor Lines vessel the S.S.
Cameronia which the British Admiralty had requisitioned for war service as a troop ship at the end of April.
Six days out of New York, in the early afternoon of 7th May, the Lusitania
was torpedoed and sunk within sight of the coast of southern Ireland by the German submarine
U-20. She was only about fourteen hours steaming time away from the safety of her home port at the time.
There were 68 Russian nationals on board when the torpedo struck the Lusitania. 39 of these were killed and only 29 survived. Unfortunately, Peter Ivannik was one of those who was killed, and as his body was never recovered and identified afterwards, he has no known grave. He was aged 34 years at the time of his death.
There was another Russian third class passenger on board called Emilian Iwanuk who was travelling from New York and survived the sinking. As his surname, like that of Peter Ivannik was anglicised from the original Russian, it is possible that it was originally the same as Ivannik’s and they may have been related.
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.