Suwanee was built as the German cargo ship SS Mark in 1913 at Vegesack, Germany, by Bremer-Vulkan Works for the North German Lloyd Line. She was the fifth freighter of the Rheinland-Class built fot the Australian Freight Line via the Cape. When World War I began in August 1914, Mark was in Japan and left Kobe with 4,000 t of coal for the Squadron of Admiral Spee. Supplying the ships of the Imperial Navy at Pagan Island, she at last served for some days the auxiliary cruisers SMS Prinz Eitel Friedrich and Cormoran. On 7 October 1914 she took refuge at Manila on Luzon in the Philippine Islands, then a neutral territory of the United States, to avoid capture or destruction by Allied naval forces. She was still there when the United States entered the war on the side of the Allies in April 191