Fort Douglas

Utah

A German warship crew stranded at Guam in 1914 ended up imprisoned in the foothills above Salt Lake City.

militaryhistorical

The SMS Cormoran left the German colony of Qingdao, China, at the start of the First World War. In December of 1914 it pulled into Guam looking for coal and provisions. The Americans refused to sell the coal. Without fuel for the boilers, the captain reluctantly submitted to detention, and his crew sat out the war in the Pacific. Then in 1917 the United States joined the Allies. The sailors became prisoners of war overnight, and they were shipped inland to a garrison in the Utah foothills called Fort Douglas. The post had been built in 1862 by Union volunteers from California and Nevada, sent to guard the overland mail route and the telegraph line while federal troops were pulled east to fight the Confederacy. It was named after Senator Stephen A. Douglas. During that same war it also held German Americans interned by their own government.

This is the first of 3 parts. The rest runs about 3 minutes and is read to you as you drive past. Hear the whole piece.

What this was written from
One of the crews kept there was from the SMS Cormoran, which had left the German colony of Qingdao, China, at the beginning of the war and stopped at Guam in December 1914 to refuel and take on provisions.

Written from Wikipedia, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

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