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During World War I, in December 1914, the
German auxiliary cruiser, Cormoran (bottom), took
advantage of America's neutral status and sought
refuge on Guam from Japanese ships which were
seizing islands and property in German Micronesia.
When
the United States declared war on Germany on April
6, 1917, American officials on Guam demanded the
surrender of the Cormoran and her crew. Because of
the excellent relationships between the Germans and
the Americans developed over the almost two and a
half years that the Cormoran had been sheltered in
neutral Guam, the German captain was fully expected
to cooperate and surrender peacefully. He did
not.
He
scuttled his ship. Angered by this action, a U. S.
Marine shot a round across the bow of a boat with
German crewmen and a U. S. Navy officer fired at
the sinking ship. These proved to be the first
shots fired by the U.S. against Germany in World
War I and were "heard around the world," so the
story went.
In
1944, during World War II, Japan, this time a
war-time enemy of the United States, had one of its
cargo carriers, the Tokai Maru (top), torpedoed in
Apra Harbor by American submarines. As it sank, it
pierced the stern of the Cormoran and the two ships
of former war-time enemies of the United States
became inextricably tangled at the bottom of the
harbor.
Interestingly,
several crew members of the German ship elected not
to return to Germany after World War I. They
remained on Guam, married, and raised "Chamorro"
families. The Japanese ship sunk in World War II
also earned a footnote in history. One of the
American submarines that did damage to the Tokai
Maru was the U.S.S. Flying Fish, the popular
nick-name of the legendary Chamorro proa of
centuries past.
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