Brazil
The Wakama was a German steam cargo ship with a steel hull, measuring 112 m by 15 m and displacing 3,771 t. Under the command of Captain Berhard Schacht, she reached the port of Rio de Janeiro on 27 August 1939, days before the start of the Second World War. The British naval attaché in Rio learned that the ship was using its radio in port to report ship movements and denounced her to the Brazilian government as a German naval auxiliary; the Wakama left port 36 hours later.
The sinking became known as the Wakama Incident. On 21 February 1940, the United States government agreed that the incident violated the Declaration of Panama and proposed a collective statement by the American republics in support of the Brazilian protest. In March 1940, the Brazilian government protested to the British over the violation of the Pan-American Neutrality Zone. The President of Panama, Augusto Samuel Boyd, also sent a formal complaint to the British government over the violation of the Pan-American Security Zone.
Today the hull is broken up.
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