Search results for SMS Cormoran II
SMS Cormoran II: Two Crew Member Profiles
Ernest Max Adolph. My father’s name was Ernest Max Adolf, perhaps he had already changed his last name to Adolph. He was born in 1891 and died in 1988, still being of sound mind at the age of 97.
SMS Cormoran II: Local Stories
From December 1914 to April 1917, Guam was the backdrop for one of the earliest stories of the United States’ participation in World War I. The first violent shots between the US and Germany were fired on Guam. The first German casualties and deaths occurred in the waters of Apra Harbor, Guam. The first POWs were imprisoned on Guam.
SMS Cormoran II
Details and description. The SS Rjasan (or Riasan) was a Russian passenger and mail carrier built by the German Schicau dockyard in Elbing in 1909. Named after the Russian town located southeast of Moscow, the Rjasan was built for the Russian Volunteer Fleet Association (known as the Dobroflot), founded in 1878.
SMS Cormoran II: Non-German Crew Members
When the SMS Cormoran II arrived in Guam in December 1914, among the hundreds of crew members were individuals who worked on the vessel but were not German. Twenty-nine men originally from German New Guinea in the South Pacific and four Chinese men from Tsingtao stayed on Guam along with their German counterparts for the duration of the Cormoran’s internment at Apra Harbor.
SMS Cormoran II Memorial
Located in East Hagåtña on the beachside of Marine Corps Drive is a small cemetery maintained by the United States Navy. There are 254 listed graves in this space, nestled between a local car dealership on one side and Padre Palomo Beach Park on the other. The earliest grave marker is dated 1902, and the most recent 1955. US military personnel, Chamorro service members, and civilians—even children—are buried in this hallowed ground. Among the neatly laid rows of cambered or arc-shaped grave markers closest to the beach is a small white obelisk dedicated to the SMS Cormoran II and the seven crew members who died in the first skirmish between the US and Germany in World War I.
The SMS Cormoran II Crew – Prisoners of War
After more than two years of internment on the United States territory of Guam, the German cruiser SMS Cormoran II was scuttled by its crew in Apra Harbor on 7 April 1917 to prevent it becoming a spoil of war between the US and Germany.
SMS Cormoran II: Partial Crew List
The partial list presented here that researcher James Oelke-Farley compiled for Guampedia, indicates only 108 crew members. The list was cross-checked with message traffic from the US State Department and prison records. However, Oelke-Farley explains that when the men arrived in the US they often were no longer referred to by the ship upon which they served as crew members (the crew of the SMS Geier which had been interned in Honolulu was combined with the Comoran’s crew on the way to the prisoner of war camp in Fort Douglas, Utah) but rather simply as “POWs” or “German Navy,” which has made an exact identification of every man difficult.
The Journey of SMS Cormoran II
The German cruiser Cormoran II, intentionally scuttled by its own captain during World War I, sits on the bottom of Guam’s Apra Harbor. The shipwreck, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975, would be noteworthy by itself, yet the sinking of the Japanese ship Tokai Maru nearly on top of […]
SMS Cormoran II
100th Anniversary of the Arrival of SMS Cormoran II in Guam. Alongside the busy traffic on Marine Corps Drive in East Hagåtña, there is a small cemetery, oddly placed between Padre Palomo Park and a car dealership, its gravestones lined neatly in parallel rows on closely trimmed grass.
First US Shot of WWI is Fired at Cormoran
The first shot by Americans during WWI is fired over the bow of the SMS Cormoran as it is scuttled in Apra Harbor, Guam. About 370 crew members became prisoners of war and taken to the US. The four Chinese and 29 New Guinean crew members were sent back to their homes.