Glenn Robert Curtis

Rank: Messman, United States Merchant Marine

Ship: SS Meriwether Lewis

Entered service from: New Jersey

Died: March 3, 1943

Glenn Robert Curtis was born in Pennsylvania in 1924 to James and Nellie Curtis. The family moved to Oaklyn, NJ, where by April of 1930 they were renting a home at 7 Valley Road. The elder Curtis was an electrician. Besides Glenn, there was an older sister, Dorothy, and a brother, LeRoy Curtis. The family later moved to Lakeside Avenue in the Ashland section of Delaware Township (Cherry Hill), NJ.

Glenn Curtis shipped out as a messman in the Merchant Marine. He was aboard the Liberty Ship SS Meriwether Lewis when it was torpedoed in the North Atlantic.

The SS Meriwether Lewis, a Liberty Ship, was lost on March 3, 1943 in the North Atlantic at 62-10 N x 28-25 W when the ship was torpedoed and sunk by the German Submarine U-634 under the command of Oberleutnant zur See Eberhard Dahlhaus. The Lewis was part of a convoy headed for the United Kingdom. Her cargo was ammunition and tires. The Lewis was falling behind the convoy when she was torpedoed. The Coast Guard searched the area for two days, but the only trace of the SS Meriwether Lewis was a 30-mile-long line of tires. The SS Meriwether Lewis carried a crew of 44 with an armed guard of 28 men and was lost with all hands. Also serving on the SS Meriwether Lewis was Harry Jackson Mote of Camden, NJ.

The SS Meriwether Lewis was the only ship sunk by U-634. The U-634 herself was sunk with all 47 hands lost on August 30, 1943 in the North Atlantic east of the Azores, in position 40.13N, 19.24W, by depth charges from the British sloop HMS Stork and the corvette HMS Stonecrop.