Built as a cargo/passenger vessel under yard No 831 by F. Schichau yard at Elbing, Danzig for the Russian Volunteer Fleet Association (Dobrovolny Flot.).
March 1909 launched as the RYAZAN, named after the Russian town Ryazan, one sister.
Tonnage 3,433 grt, 5,200 dwt., dim.103.0 x 13.7 x 5.8m. (draught), length bpp. 99.4m.
Powered by one 3-cyl triple-expansion steam engine 4,750 hp, speed 16 knots.
Passenger accommodation, first class 62, second class 20 and third class 100 passengers.
Crew 95.
30 November 1909 completed.
Used in a liner service between Vladivostok, Japan and Shanghai., she could also when needed quickly fitted out as a armed merchant cruiser, or as troopship.
04 August 1914 was she taken by the German light cruiser EMDEN in the Korea Strait, at that time the RYAZAN had 80 passengers on board. The EMDEN send his price to Tsingtao in the German colony Kiautschou where she was converted in a armed merchant raider, renamed CORMORAN (II).
Armed with 8 – 10.5 cm quick firing guns , taken from the CORMORAN (I) before she was scuttled .
Crew: 22 Officers and 334 crew.
07 August 1914 commissioned, under command of Captain Adalbert Zuckschwerdt
10 August 1914 she sailed from Tsingtao port, and sailed unnoticed from the Chinese and Korean waters with two coal transport ships to Majuro, Marshall Islands were she joined the German East-India squadron.
27 August she received orders from Vice Admiral von Spee together with the PRINZ EITEL FRIEDRICH to proceed to the waters in the Bismarck Archipelago.
The main problem for the two ships was the get sufficient coal bunkers from ports or bunker ships.
14 December she arrived at Apra, Guam for bunkers, only 50 ton coal were remaining in her bunkers, but there were not sufficient bunkers available and the CORMORAN was refused bunkers.
During her 127 days as raider she did not sink or captured any vessel.
Due to strained diplomatic relations between the United States and Germany and the limited amount of coal stored at Guam, Governor William John Maxwell refused to supply CORMORAN with more than a token amount of coal. U.S. authorities ordered the ship to leave within 24 hours or submit to detention. This created a standoff between the German crew and the Americans that lasted nearly two years, until Governor Maxwell was involuntarily placed on the sick list and replaced by his subordinate, William P. Cronan, who decided that the German crew should be treated as guests of the United States. The CORMORAN was still not permitted to leave the harbor, but the crew were treated as friends, achieving a minor celebrity status on the island.
When the U.S. Congress declared war on Germany on 7 April 1917, Captain Adalbert Zuckschwerdt scuttled his ship rather than surrender her. This caused the "first shot" to be fired between the United States and Imperial Germany during World War I. Though almost no US history books mention it. Naval forces at Guam saw the German crew preparing to sink the ship and fired a shot over their bow. Ironically, nine crew members perished during the scuttling of the ship and were buried with full military honors in the naval cemetery at Agana. After Americans rescued and captured the surviving Germans, Cronan congratulated Zuckschwerdt for the bravery of his men. The U.S. Navy conducted a limited salvage operation and the ship's bell was recovered. It is exhibited at the U.S. Naval Academy Museum at Annapolis, Maryland. Other artifacts have been removed by divers over the years.
The German crew was sent to Fort Douglas, Utah, where some were transferred to Fort McPherson, Georgia. They were returned home to Germany nearly one year after the war's end on 7 October 1919.
SMS CORMORAN (II) rests 110 ft (34 m) below the surface on her port side. The Japanese cargo ship TOKAI MARU, (sunk by the USS SNAPPER r), leans against her screw. It is one of the few places where divers can explore a World War I shipwreck next to a ship from World War II.
In 1975 the wreck was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. The ship was listed because of its association with World War I
Palau 1985 44c sg84, scottC9
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_Cormoran_(1909) and various other web-sites.