The SMS Mowe then received her orders to begin "cruiser warfare" and was relocated into the shipping lanes of the Atlantic. The lanes were a lifeline for Britain and the European mainland, stretching as far south as South America. On January 11th,1916, two steamers were sighted and the German flag replaced the Swedish colors and a warning shot was fired across both steamers. The first steamer was thoroughly searched before being sunk while the second steamer was claimed as a prize, her coal to be used to fuel the German ship. The enemy crews were taken captive. On January 16th, 1916, the Mowe encountered a lightly-armed British merchant ship, resulting in the British ship being scuttled. In three months, the Mowe would be credited with 19 ships sunk, two captured as prizes and one serving more than five hundred Allied prisoners. The Mowe then returned to Germany on April 4th, 1916, her first voyage proving a resounding success.
The SMS Mowe was then sent to dry dock for repairs that lasted two months. The British Admiralty was now aware of the SMS Mowe so an effort by the Germans was made to maintain her advantage which forced some structural modifications to be made. She was also given a new operating name - the SMS Vineta. SMS Vineta then set out on a series of short cruises off Norway during the summer of 1916. In three months, only one ship was captured to which, on August 24th, 1916, the Vineta was ordered back port-side for refit.
The SMS Vineta was renamed as the SMS Mowe before heading out for her second Atlantic voyage. Mowe took on a new crew and supplies and on November 23rd, 1916 she entered the Atlantic. Her first victim was on December 6th, 1916 when she came upon the steam ship SS Mount Temple. The cargo included war supplies and 700 war horses - the ship was subsequently sunk after the crew had been removed. Six days later, on December 12th, the SS Georgic was sighted and captured with 1,200 war horses as cargo that were heading for the Western Front. Accordingly, the ship and her live cargo were sent to the bottom.
The Royal Navy diverted a number of destroyers to specifically hunt down the Mowe but none were successful. The SS Yarrowdale was found and seized and sent to Germany as a prize to which the vessel was then converted as an auxiliary cruiser ship fitted with 5 x 150mm deck guns and 4 x 88 mm guns anti-aircraft guns with two torpedo tubes. On January 9th, 1917 the captured freighter Yarrowdale was commissioned as the auxiliary cruiser SMS Leopard for service to the German Navy. Mowe captured the steamship SS Saint Theodore to which the German Navy converted as a collier and armed her as best they could under her new name of Geier. The Geier, with a small crew from the Mowe, operated as a raider for six weeks and sunk two ships.
On March 10th, the SMS Mowe was in action against a New Zealand merchant ship and suffered damage, forcing the raider to return to Germany for repairs. Mowe successfully ran the British blockade yet again and, on the same day, the auxiliary cruiser SMS Leopard set out on her first and only raiding voyage. Disguised as the Norwegian freighter Rena, and after a fierce exchange of gunfire, the Leopard was sunk by the same British force that missed the Mowe prior. Mowe arrived safely in port on March 22th, 1917. In just four months Mowe claimed 28 ships - one ship was captured and released while another was taken as a war prize and the remaining 26 were sunk.
The crew of the SMS Mowe were greeted as heroes in Germany and toured a number of cities for propaganda purposes. However, Mowe's days as a commerce raider were finished as German Navy authorities felt the British would target her at all costs now, what with her record of having sunk 45 ships. As such, the Mowe's next mission involved a conversion program to a submarine tender to be stationed in the Baltic. In 1918 she was renamed the Ostsee and classified as an auxiliary minelayer. By this time, the German war situation had made a turn for the worse and an Armistice was signed in November, thusly ending World War 1. With the German Empire charged with much of the blame for the war, the SMS Mowe was handed over to the British as war reparations per the Treaty of Versailles and operated as the freighter "Greenbrier". In 1933, the Greenbrier was purchased by a German shipping company to be used as the freighter "SS Oldenburg". When war greeted the European mainland once more in World War 2, she was pressed into service with the German Navy as a freighter used to ferry supplies and equipment between German ports and occupied Norway. On April 7th, 1945, the SS Oldenburg was attacked by British warplanes while off the coast of Norway and sunk - thus bringing an end to the long storied tenure of the SMS Mowe.
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