For many, the SMS Cormoran is just the little wreck next to the Tokai Maru, a massive World War II wreck that draws divers to Guam’s Apra Harbor. But exploring the World War I German light cruiser and documenting its crew and the people of the region was the author Herbert T. Ward’s life passion. He took a job in the Guam in the 1960s and pioneered wreck diving just to explore the wreck, which ultimately claimed him in an accident in 1975. The ship had a fairly undistinguished service in the South Pacific before it was ignominiously scuttled in the harbor. But Ward’s narrative reminds readers that crews on warships come from all walks of life, and have needs and wants and dreams, and that tending a ship is hard, tedious work. The book also gives insights to early days of scuba, and of the creativity of explorers and the dangers they faced to pursue the quest for knowledge. Several pages of black and white photos vividly show what life was like in the heyday of the Cormoran as well as in the 1960s when Ward visited the wreck at 120 feet daily on a double-hose scuba.
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