Theodor Strulz was born in Imperial Russia in 1888. He had left his native land and crossed the Atlantic Ocean to Canada, where he found employment as a labourer.
In the spring of 1915, however, he decided to return home, maybe because of the military situation in Europe and the setbacks being suffered at the time, by the Imperial Russian Army.
Consequently, he booked third class passage on the Lusitania from New York to Liverpool and travelling from Canada at the end of April, he boarded the liner at the Cunard berth in New York harbour on the morning of 1st May 1915. He had his last sight of New York harbour in the early afternoon of that day as the liner began her delayed sailing out into the North River and into the Atlantic. The delay was caused because she had to wait to embark passengers, crew and cargo from the liner 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, he was one of the many steerage passengers killed after the steamer was torpedoed and sunk off the coast of southern Ireland, by the German submarine U-20. At that stage, the Cunarder was only hours away from her home port.
As his body was never recovered and identified, he has no known grave. He was aged 27 years.
Altogether there were 69 Russian nationals who were passengers on the Lusitania. Of these, 40 were killed and 29 survived the sinking.
Cunard Records, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.