The Wreck and Story of SMS Cormoran - Two World Wars, Two Wrecks

Added: 2026-05-25

[00:00:00]When it comes to the world wars, it's easy to identify the entrance of the United States into the second one, Pearl Harbor. The United States was attacked and forced into the war in a proper way, though American lives and American ships had already been lost long before this point without formally joining. It is nice and simple though to look at the Japanese attack as America's entrance into the war. What of the Great War, however? Well, there's less of an obvious event as the United States declared war on the Central Powers without any surprise attack necessary.

[00:00:44]That being said, it would again be in the Pacific in an American island territory that the first shots of the United States would be fired. Only this time, it wouldn't see thousands of lives lost, nor warships crippled or destroyed.

[00:01:02]In fact, it was a relatively peaceful encounter, as those things go. The scuttling of the SMS Corinan, a German merchant raider, is how the first American shots were fired. Warning shots that killed no one, yet nonetheless the first shots by American forces during wartime. Shots that were largely forgotten for the longest time simply because of how uneventful it really was.

[00:01:33]This is a short story, though one that deserves to be remembered even so. The life of Corin, for her part, began simply enough. She was launched as a Russian merchant ship, the Riaon, in 1909.

[00:01:50]Launched by a German yard, ironically enough, she would proceed to spend her career under the Russian flag off in the Pacific Ocean. In this she served various roles with cargo transport being the primary one though she would also carry mail and serve as a small and not particularly luxurious ocean liner. The sorts of roles that would have seen her completely forgotten in most circumstances.

[00:02:22]Her small size, 3,500 tons, didn't lend her to the kind of fame of the Grand Atlantic liners. Nor did her modest 17 knots of speed.

[00:02:35]Of course, it's at this point that the Great War intervened and changed all of that. With Germany and Russia now at war, the small little workhorse was soon captured. She would, as it turned out, be the first prize taken from Russia in World War I. Her captor, the far more famous SMS, would take the ship to the German colonies in China. It was here that the Russian merchant would be converted into the German raider. You see, the original SMS Corinan, a small little cruiser dating back to the early 1890s, was laid up in harbor in China. That old ship, even slower than the captured Russian merchant, was in need of serious maintenance to be sent back to sea.

[00:03:28]Serious enough, in fact, that her crew was transferred over to the captured Russia, which was promptly renamed SMS Corin in place of the cruiser.

[00:03:42]Some or all of the old Cormaran's main battery was also transferred over, giving the new Raider a substantial bite of eight 10.5 cm, 4.1 in guns. a bite that would prove rather useless really.

[00:04:00]Cormaran set out on August 10th, 1914 for raiding duty. Not long after this, Japan would declare war on Germany and Coran was forced to avoid roving Japanese warships and for that matter roving Australian warships as well.

[00:04:21]Eventually, she was forced to sail for neutral Guam and American territory. By the time she arrived, the raider was down to 50 tons of coal, and her crew had taken to burning both the wooden fittings and coconut husks to keep the ship moving. That can not have been good for the boilers.

[00:04:44]Understandably, her captain asked the American governor for coal, specifically enough coal, 1500 tons, to reach German East Africa. The American governor, aware of the strained relations between the two countries, refused outright.

[00:05:03]Moreover, Guam was suffering a shortage of coal as it was, and the most he was willing to offer was 200 tons.

[00:05:13]enough to maybe find an occupied German colony to surrender to the Anton on. The Germans could either leave anyway within 24 hours or be detained. The corarin's captain, for all intents and purposes, chose the latter. His ship was disarmed, and his men were subjected to watchful American eyes, as the governor remained convinced they were spies. at the absolute best. It wouldn't be all bad for the Germans, however. Eventually, the governor would suffer a breakdown and be removed from his position. His replacement was far more kind to the German crew. Cormaran's men could come ashore and be treated as, well, guests of the United States. There are pictures and journals of these men treating the entire thing as a grand vacation.

[00:06:13]And compared to the suffering in East Africa or in Europe, it might as well have been one for the Germans. Cormaran was still detained, however, not allowed to leave the harbor unless it was to move to avoid sinking in a storm. Of course, the good times wouldn't couldn't last forever. As 1917 marched along, tensions began to grow. It was becoming apparent that the United States and Imperial Germany were on a collision course. One would have to be willingly blind to miss it. The Germans began to prepare to scuttle their ship on a moment's notice, having exactly zero intention of turning her over to the Americans.

[00:07:01]So it was on April 7th, 1917.

[00:07:06]April 6th in Washington, the United States declared war on Germany. In Guam, the harbor exit was blocked by USS Supply as officers were sent towards Coran to inform the Germans of the newfound state of war. The German guests, almost celebrities at this point, were now prisoners of war. It was during this process that the first American shots of the Great War were fired. In a different boat, a barge, a group of American men moved toward the German raid. This was the prize crew led by a lieutenant hall. 18 sailors and 15 marines. While they slowly moved toward Corin, Hall spotted a German boat towing another barge to shore. The Germans aboard the boat naturally had no idea of the declaration of war and were going ashore to grab food and other supplies.

[00:08:12]Those men were quite shocked then when Hall on his own initiative ordered a shot across the bow. The Germans, again probably incredibly confused, did not stop immediately. Hall ordered another marine to fire as well. The two Marines, one firing in front of the German launch and the other behind the stern, fired several more shots. Eventually, the stunned Germans came to a halt.

[00:08:45]Meanwhile, aboard Cormaran, the German captain was informed of the change in situation. He agreed to surrender his men to American custody, but Flat refused to turn over the ship. This should have been a clue to what the Germans were planning, one would assume.

[00:09:03]After all, why surrender the crew, but say the Americans couldn't have the ship herself?

[00:09:09]To be fair to the American officers who informed the German captain that his defenseless ship would be treated as an enemy combatant, it must have seemed quite impossible that the Germans could have scuttled the ship. Oh, sure they could try, but the Americans could get men aboard to fix whatever damage was done to piping or the like. The Germans had other plans. They had managed to hide explosives in Cormaran's coal bunker. Exactly how, I'm not sure. All the ammunition would have had to be offloaded when the ship was interned.

[00:09:50]Nonetheless, explosives were hidden behind a hidden panel. Those explosives would go off only minutes after the American officers left, blowing debris from Corin across the harbor. As her crew rapidly abandoned ship, the raider that had never raided sank within minutes. To the credit of the Americans here, they were quick to turn their boats around and release the German launch to rescue the men in the water.

[00:10:22]Supply would join in as well. In the end, seven of the 370 men aboard would die. Some by drowning, some from debris, and one from a heart attack, six of the bodies would be recovered and buried ashore, while the seventh was never found. It might have been eight. When the German launch returned to shore, Cormaran's captain ordered one of his men to destroy the boat's engine. A bit of a petty thing, though. I can understand why he did. That sailor would destroy the engine with a sledgehammer, prompting a marine to raise his rifle on the German sailor. Luckily for him, another marine and officer pushed the muzzle away, saving the life of that German sailor. In the end, the first conflict between America and Germany in the Great War would be a relatively peaceful and bloodless affair. The survivors of the raiders crew would spend the rest of the war in P camps while their ship would probably have been forgotten were not four decades later a Japanese freighter just happening to Moore right above her wreck in occupied Guam's harbor. That freighter Tokai Maru would in turn be sunk by an American submarine and come crashing down next to Cor and Silent Wreck, becoming the incredibly bizarre case of a ship from both world wars touching on the seafloor. Two enemies of the United States sunk right on top of each other in a remote Pacific harbor.

[00:12:12]And that is what we'll be moving to now.

[00:12:16]Because this video after all is covering Corin's story, but also her wreck and that of Tokai Maru. These two wrecks from different world wars are touching each other. You can place a hand on both of them at the same time. Two world wars, two shipwrecks, and by some twist of fate, they came to rest right beside each other.

[00:12:44]The two ships are connected by Cormer and Stern, which actually damaged Tokai Maru as the Japanese ship sank. The two ships have in the intervening years become a popular diving spot. For well, fairly obvious reason. How often can you see a wreck from World War I and a wreck from World War II at the same time, let alone resting against each other, not to mention the relatively shallow depth of 120 ft or 37 m at the bottom. Let's look at that. Now, I'll focus mostly on Cormer in here because Tokai Maru is a fairly average Japanese freighter wreck.

[00:13:33]She wouldn't be particularly notable if not for Corin. In any event, let's start here with a 3D model of the two wrecks from the old Deep Sea Detectives episode on this shipwreck.

[00:13:49]And a side note before I go on, am I the only one who misses that old show? I mean, yes, they had to dramatize things a lot, but it was always an interesting watch. In any case, you can immediately see the difference in size between these two wrecks. Cormaran was substantially older and smaller, dating back to 1909, while Tokai Maru was launched in 1930.

[00:14:19]That difference in size is apparent in this model, but also in drawings of the rec site. I would imagine you can tell on the bottom as well, acknowledging the visibility limitations, of course, such as here looking at the stern of Corin.

[00:14:37]It's certainly large, but Tokai Maru looms up in the background like a wall of steel. Both Rexs came down on their side, creating that effect today.

[00:14:50]However, the best indication of that size difference comes in the impact site. Tokai Maru's larger size is very apparent here resting against the smaller corn with the side of the Japanese ship pressed to the stern of the German one. Notably the propeller hub here. It's this area where the two wrecks collided as Tokai Maru sank. You can see some of that damage to the side in this picture, but the next one shows it better. That hole is easily seen here. A massive gash torn out of Tokai Maru's side. You can actually see inside the hole pretty well. Although it's covered in silt. While a diver could probably fit inside there, it would be incredibly dangerous and I imagine it's not allowed. Not that it's probably stopped some of the more adventurous types over the years. That aside, we can also see that prop hub once more. The actual propeller blades themselves are missing. Those either fell away in the sinking and the collision or were salvaged at some point. I've never read of the wreck being salvaged, but the missing screws and the lack of pictures of the guns leads me to believe she probably was. Regardless, let's move on.

[00:16:20]There aren't many good looks at the exterior of the wreck, although we have a pretty good one here. Cormaran looks decent enough for a wreck underwater for 90 years at that point. Most World War I wrecks are much worse, not least because of salvage. Cormaran may be in shallow water, but she's fortunate to be in Opera Harbor at Guam. In any event, there's not much to see here. Just the side of the ship and what looks like the prominade deck or an equivalent area.

[00:16:58]The next image is probably more interesting. This is a skylight over the engine room, though most of it is gone at this point. Only the frames remain and even those are rusting out and covered in marine growth with fairly notable holes nearby clearly caused by the hole rusting out. I can only imagine how much worse that has gotten in the 20 years since these pictures were taken because these were taken in the early 2000s.

[00:17:34]It's also our last exterior look. The remainder are going to be the interior.

[00:17:41]I'll do my best to describe things here, but a lot of this is so silty and deteriorated that I can't identify exact details, such as, for example, the first picture here. You can see the frames of the ship, but it's impossible to make out more. The damage is too severe. on top of all the silt and mud kicked up by the diver. The next picture is better in that regard, but still doesn't have much detail. We have a look down a passageway looking deeper into the hull. Corarin is once more on her side. So everything here is sideways and we're looking to the side, not down to the keel. It also makes diving inside this wreck even more dangerous than it otherwise would be.

[00:18:37]Cormaran isn't just aging and falling apart, but she's also on her side, making it a maze inside the ship. So, most divers will focus on areas closer to the deck, such as this one looking out through rusted metal. There's a pile of debris here along with the openings to the water. Unfortunately, what the debris was isn't particularly clear.

[00:19:05]This next picture is better in that we have a clearer look at the wreck, but much as with the others, there's not much detail. Corrin is, for better or worse, a pretty empty wreck. Like I said earlier, I've never seen pictures of her weaponry. And as a converted freighter and ocean liner, she doesn't have turrets, torpedoes, or anything like that. What she does have, on the other hand, are interesting interior shots like this one of a bathroom with the tiles still in place and the pattern recognizable. The color has mostly faded out or been covered by silt, but you can still see the patterning in the tiles themselves.

[00:19:57]And in the same general area, we also have a tub tilted to the side and surrounded by debris, but still intact and still in place. That's where civilian ships differ from military warships. You don't see things like this very often. Aside from those toilets on HMS Hermes, of course. That said, we're nearly at the end now. We have this picture of a stairwell with the railing still in place. This is presumably part of the engine room with everything tilted to the side. It's hard to say for sure. Although it certainly looks like something that would fit in that area.

[00:20:44]The last two pictures, meanwhile, are of two different anchors. One resting upright on the deck here. This doesn't look like it was corand. It seems to have come from a ship that mored here at some point. And that some point was quite a long time ago, judging from the marine growth. It's also resting inside the ship with the deck around it gone.

[00:21:12]The second anchor, meanwhile, is on its side. This might actually be from Cormer and herself from how old it looks. It's certainly rusty enough and covered by the marine life you'd expect, but I can't say for 100% certain. Still, it's a good place to round things off. Corrin is an interesting wreck, both due to her age and Tokai Maru resting against her.

[00:21:41]But for better or worse, she's not a wellrecorded wreck. Aside from dive videos on YouTube. Even now, she's still not as famous as other shipwrecks. A shame really considering her place in history. One of very few dual shipwrecks and the place where the first American shots of the Great War were fired.

[00:22:09]Thank you for watching. Remember to like, comment, and subscribe if you enjoy the content, and I'll see you in the next one.