So from the ID card found by ShaunJ, we know he was a steward on the Venezuela, formerly the Adolph Woermann (surrendered to Britain as war reparations, but that's going rather off-topic...) The ship passed through the ownership of the David Steamship Company to the Grace Line. None of which helps with the 'RC' initials, but we've made progress!

A close-up here of that offical stmap, BTW, from the version of the photo that I didn't digitally crop...