G R E AT W H I T E F L E E T

THE WORLD CRUISE of the 

Edited by MICHAEL J. CRAWFORD

With a foreword by THE HONORABLE DONALD C. WINTER

G R E AT W H I T E F L E E T

THE WORLD CRUISE of the 

H O N O R I N G 1 0 0 Y E A R S O F G L O B A L PA RT N E R S H I P S A N D S E C U R I T Y
Secretary of the Navy’s Advisory Subcommittee on 

Naval History

Dr. John B. Hattendorf (Chair)

Ms. Christine G. Hughes

CAPT William Spencer Johnson IV, USN (Ret.) 

The Honorable Robin Pirie Jr.

Mr. Fred H. Rainbow

Dr. Carol Reardon

Dr. James R. Reckner

Dr. William L. Stearman

CAPT Channing M. Zucker, USN (Ret.)

ISBN 978-0-945274-59-9 (alk. paper)

U.S. GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL EDITION NOTICE

 Use of ISBN 

 This is the Official U.S. Government edition of this 

 publication and is herein identified to certify its 

authenticity. Use of the 978-0-945274-59-9 is for U.S. 

Government Printing Office Official Editions only. The Superintendent of 

Documents of the U.S. Government Printing Office requests that any reprinted 

edition clearly be labeled as a copy of the authentic work with a new ISBN. 

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The world cruise of the Great White Fleet : honoring 100 years of global 

partnerships and security / edited by Michael J. Crawford ; with a foreword 

by Donald C. Winter.

 p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-0-945274-59-9 (alk. paper)

1. United States. Navy—Cruise, 1907–1909. 2. United States.

Navy—History—20th century. 3. United States—History, Naval—20th

century. 4. Voyages around the world. 5. United States—Foreign

relations—1901–1909. 6. National security—United States—History—20th 

century. I. Crawford, Michael J. 

VA58.W64 2008

359.40973’09041—dc22 2008006229

Published by

Naval Historical Center

805 Kidder Breese Street SE

Washington, DC 20374-5060

www.history.navy.mil

Contact us at 202-433-9785

Book design by Maureen Nugent

Front cover: Detail of banner commemorating the 

world cruise of the Great White Fleet. 

Naval Historical Center, Navy Art Collection.

The paper used in this publication meets the requirements for permanence established by the American National Standards for Information Sciences “Permanence 

of Paper for Printed Library Materials” (ANSI Z39.48-1984).

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: Bookstore.gpo.gov; Phone: toll free 866-512-1800, DC area 

202-512-1800, Fax 202-512-2104; Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402-0001.

∞
v

Contents

Foreword ................................................................................ vii

The Honorable Donald C. Winter, Seventy-Fourth Secretary of the Navy

Overview................................................................................. 1

Michael J. Crawford

The Ships................................................................................. 9

Robert J. Cressman

The Sailors..............................................................................23

Michael J. Crawford

Narrative ................................................................................ 33

JO2 Mike McKinley

Assessment ............................................................................ 91

James R. Reckner

The Final Word ..................................................................... 103

President Theodore Roosevelt on the Achievement of the Great White Fleet

Illustration Credits ..................................................................... 104

Endnotes................................................................................. 104

Acknowledgments ...................................................................... 106
This banner commemorating 

Edward S. Oliver’s participation 

is typical of the many souvenirs 

that Sailors kept of the Great 

White Fleet cruise, 1908.

Naval Historical Center, 

Navy Art Collection. 
Foreword

CELEBRATING THE CENTENNIAL OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT’S NAVY

One hundred years ago, President Theodore Roosevelt launched the United States Navy on its first 

circumnavigation of the globe. The fleet’s world cruise marked a “coming of age” for both our Navy 

and our nation. Widely considered one of the greatest peacetime achievements of the United States 

Navy, the circumnavigation made Roosevelt’s message clear: America is a respected world power, 

with a strong Navy leading the way. 

A passionate supporter of the United States Navy, and a former Assistant Secretary of the Navy, 

Roosevelt recognized the unique role and value of our nation’s maritime services. He understood 

that America’s interests had become intertwined with the global community and that the fate of the 

nation was, in many respects, inextricably tied to the strength of its Navy. For the man who made famous the phrase “speak softly and carry a big stick,” maritime power was uniquely suited to safeguard 

the interests of the nation. In a speech at the Naval War College on June 2, 1897, Roosevelt, inspired 

by the words of George Washington, declared, “To be prepared for war is the most effectual means to 

promote peace.” Naval presence unquestionably provided a measure of power projection, but it was 

also a valuable instrument for diplomacy and international partnership. 

As President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt put his ideas into action. In 1907, he 

made the prescient decision to take the United States Navy “global.” Some considered Roosevelt’s 

vii
viii

vision to be inordinately risky and espoused isolationism. Roosevelt, however, challenged 

his political detractors by stating, “We have no choice as to whether or not we shall play a 

great part in the world.” 

Accordingly, the “Great White Fleet” deployment embodied many of the core 

virtues that continue to shape our Navy. Today the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast 

Guard jointly implement our shared vision as outlined in “A Cooperative Strategy for 

21st Century Seapower.” The most important tenets of this maritime strategy are our 

commitment to our friends and allies, our desire to help those in need with disaster 

response capabilities, and our determination to maintain preeminence in the maritime 

domain. All have historical antecedents in the experiences of the Great White Fleet and 

remain as important now as they were then. 

As the Great White Fleet embarked on its around-the-world voyage with port visits 

across the globe—from Brazil and Chile to Australia, Japan, and Italy—the Sailors and 

Marines of the fleet furthered U.S. diplomacy and built relationships that still flourish 

today. Informed by its diplomatic tradition, the Navy continues to work with partners 

to deter aggressors, protect the right to operate freely at sea, and provide humanitarian 

assistance and disaster relief around the world. Today our Navy remains an essential 

element of U.S. power. The U.S. fleet is present around the world 24 hours a day, 7 days a 

week, reassuring friends, deterring potential adversaries, maintaining security at sea, and 

providing for the defense of our homeland. 

Roosevelt understood that a great Navy cannot be built overnight and requires 

sustained support. Rallying U.S. public opinion in support of the Navy, and winning over 

recalcitrant Members of Congress who opposed his shipbuilding program, he used the 

tour of the Great White Fleet to drive home the need for a strong, standing Navy that 

FOREWORD
ix

FOREWORD

could provide maritime presence from east to west. Indeed, Roosevelt was emphatic 

about public support for the Navy, claiming, “In a great self-governing republic like ours 

the Army and Navy can only be so good as the mass of the people wish them to be.” One 

hundred years later, our fleet is strong because of the support of our Sailors and Marines, 

their families, and the American public. 

The United States is a maritime nation with maritime interests that continue to grow 

in both scale and importance. With Sailors and Marines deployed overseas, we recognize 

that a robust Navy is as vital to preserving life and liberty as ever before—not only during 

wartime but in times of peace. As Secretary of the Navy, I am grateful to President 

Roosevelt for imparting to the nation that perspective. Commemorating Theodore 

Roosevelt’s “Great White Fleet” expresses our understanding of the value of a strong, 

globally positioned Navy. We honor our naval personnel and their families, as well as the 

freedom and friendships their common service has bestowed on the people of the United 

States. By reflecting on the past and focusing on the future, we celebrate one hundred 

years of global partnerships and security. Further, we renew our commitment to our 

great Navy. 

The Honorable Donald C. Winter 

Seventy-Fourth Secretary of the Navy
Commanding officers of the fleet’s ships, photographed in 1908. Left to right, standing: Captains Hamilton Hutchins, Frank E. Beatty, Reginald F. Nicholson, 

Thomas B. Howard, William H. H. Southerland, Walter C. Cowles, John M. Bowyer, Alexander Sharp, and Lieutenant Commander Charles B. McVay. 

Left to right, seated: Captains Hugo Osterhaus, Kossuth Niles, William P. Potter, John Hubbard, Joseph P. Murdock, and Charles E. Vreeland. 

Naval Historical Center, Photographic Collection. 
1

Michael J. Crawford

Overview

Beginnings and Ends

The world cruise of the Great White Fleet had dual origins, a diplomatic crisis with 

Japan and a need to test new U.S. battleships.

On June 27, 1907, at the height of a crisis in Japanese-American relations, President 

Theodore Roosevelt decided to send the Atlantic battleship fleet to the Pacific in 

the fall. The 1904–5 Russo-Japanese War had demonstrated the military and naval 

might of Japan, while the decisive Russian defeat at Tsushima impressed on the 

public’s consciousness that a battle fleet, after steaming great distances, could arrive at its destination in no condition to fight. With nearly all U.S. battleships in 

the Atlantic Fleet, the U.S. naval force in the Pacific was no match for the Japanese 

Imperial Navy. Aware of these conditions, West Coast residents of the United 

States felt vulnerable to attack.
2

THE GREAT WHITE FLEET

Coinciding with the Japanese-American diplomatic crisis in 1907, 

the Atlantic Fleet possessed a sufficient number of new first-class battleships available for a sustained exercise. 

Roosevelt seized the opportunity and ordered the Atlantic 

battleship fleet deployed to the Pacific Ocean. The exercise would 

test the new battleships’ mechanical systems and their ability to reach 

the Pacific in fit condition to engage an enemy as well as bolster the 

security of the West Coast. On July 2, Secretary of the Navy Victor H. 

Metcalf announced that “eighteen or twenty of the largest battleships 

would come around Cape Horn on a practice cruise, and be seen in San 

Francisco Harbor.”

In publicizing the cruise to the Pacific, Metcalf said nothing about the 

fleet’s return route to the Atlantic. Remaining flexible in case a circumnavigation of the globe proved impractical, the administration waited until 

the fleet reached the west coast of Mexico without major mechanical 

difficulties before stating officially that it would return to the Atlantic by 

way of Australia, the Philippines, the Suez Canal, and the Mediterranean. 

President Roosevelt’s message precipitated a wave of invitations from 

countries along the route for the fleet to pay port visits. By this time, diplomatic relations with Japan had also improved as it became clear that the 

Japanese had no intention of declaring war. The Japanese ambassador extended his country’s invitation, pointing out that a visit by the American 

fleet to Japan would emphasize the “traditional relations of good understanding and mutual sympathy” between the two countries.

President Roosevelt did not send the battle fleet on its globe-girdling 

voyage principally to awe Japan. Rather, he intended to exercise the 

fleet, demonstrate America’s naval prowess to the nations of the world, 

and garner enthusiasm for the Navy among Americans at home as well 

U.S. Battleship Connecticut leads the fleet, steaming out of Hampton Roads, Virginia, 

December 16, 1907. Naval Historical Center, Photographic Collection. 
3

OVERVIEW

as votes in Congress for naval construction. Seen in this light, the first 

half of the cruise would be an exercise in naval contingency planning, 

and the second half, an exercise in naval diplomacy at home and abroad.

First Leg

From Hampton Roads, Virginia, December 16, 1907

to San Francisco, California, May 6, 1908

14,556 Miles

“Did you ever see such a fleet? Isn’t it magnificent? Oughtn’t we all feel 

proud?” exclaimed President Roosevelt as, from the presidential yacht 

Mayflower, he watched the sixteen gleaming white and buff first-class 

battleships pass out of Hampton Roads, through the Virginia Capes, and 

into the open sea. The fleet was organized into two squadrons, and each 

squadron consisted of two divisions of four battleships each.

The first stop was Port of Spain, Trinidad, where the fleet anchored 

on December 23 to coal. The fleet crossed the line into the southern 

hemisphere on January 6 and anchored in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, six 

days later. Off the coast of Argentina, a squadron from that nation’s 

navy formally saluted the fleet as it proceeded south to Punta Arenas, 

Chile, where it stopped once again to coal. After passing through the 

Strait of Magellan without mishap, the fleet paraded through the harbor of Valparaiso, Chile, without stopping, then continued north. On 

February 20 it arrived at Callao, Peru. In every port, officers attended 

formal receptions and Sailors partook of liberty ashore.

After pausing a month in Magdalena Bay in Mexico’s Baja 

California for its annual gunnery exercises, the fleet reentered U.S. 

A Japanese print of Theodore Roosevelt’s image, distributed at the time of 

the Great White Fleet’s visit. Stephen and Michiko Levine Collection.
4

THE GREAT WHITE FLEET

territory and dropped anchor at Coronado, California, on April 14, for 

a visit to San Diego. Four days later it moved north to Los Angeles. On 

the way to San Francisco, the fleet visited Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, 

and Monterey. Each town sought to outdo its neighbors in welcoming 

the fleet.

The most significant event on the West Coast was the grand entry 

of the Atlantic and Pacific Fleet ships into San Francisco Bay where the 

Secretary of the Navy reviewed the combined formations.

In the course of nearly three months, elements of the fleet visited 

cities up and down the West Coast. The entire fleet visited Seattle. Some 

of its ships went into dry dock at Bellingham, Washington, for cleaning of 

their underwater hulls, while other ships returned to San Francisco.

Second Leg

From San Francisco, California, July 7, 1908

to Manila, Philippine Islands, November 7, 1908

16,336 Miles

On July 7, the fleet bid farewell to San Francisco, weighed anchor, and 

began its voyage across the Pacific Ocean.

On July 16, the fleet arrived at Honolulu, Hawaii, where the officers enjoyed luaus and sailing regattas. The ships departed six days later, 

reaching Auckland, New Zealand, on August 9. After six days of festivities there—Rear Admiral Charles S. Sperry, who had replaced Rear 

Admiral Robley D. Evans at San Francisco as the fleet’s commander, 

traveled with his staff to the center of the North Island to observe traditional Maori ceremonies—the fleet proceeded to Australia, spending 

nearly a month visiting the ports of Sydney, Melbourne, and Albany. 

On its way to Japan, the fleet made a stop at Manila, Philippine 

Islands, where a cholera epidemic prevented the Sailors from taking 

liberty in the capital.

Yokohama, Japan, extended its hospitality to the fleet for a week, 

beginning October 18. Following a visit to Amoy (present-day Xiamen), 

China, the Second Squadron rejoined the First Squadron, practicing 

gunnery in Manila Bay.

The first of a set of four 

postcards of Rear Admiral 

Robley D. Evans, each with 

a different verse about the 

visit of the Great White 

Fleet to California. 

William Stewart Collection.
5

Electrician Roy W. Davis, a member of 

U.S. Battleship Vermont’s crew, drew 

this map tracking the Great White 

Fleet’s voyage. Naval Historical Center, 

Roy W. Davis Collection.

Naval Historical Center, Roy W. Davis Collection.
6

THE GREAT WHITE FLEET

Third Leg

From Manila, Philippine Islands, December 1, 1908

to Hampton Roads, Virginia, February 22, 1909

12,455 Miles

Departing Manila, the fleet made its way through the South China Sea, 

the Strait of Malacca, and the Indian Ocean to Colombo, Ceylon (Sri 

Lanka), where it remained a week (December 13–20). After traversing the Arabian Sea, Gulf of Aden, and the Red Sea, the fleet arrived at 

Suez, Egypt, on January 3, 1909. It then passed through the canal into 

the Mediterranean Sea. January saw the fleet split up to make several 

ports of call, including Algiers, Tripoli, Naples, Marseille, Athens, and 

Malta, while dispatching the battleships Connecticut and Illinois, supply 

ship Culgoa, and yacht Yankton to aid victims of an earthquake and a 

tidal wave on the island of Sicily. By February 6, the fleet had rejoined at 

Gibraltar. On February 22, the Great White Fleet filed back home into 

Hampton Roads, completing the circumnavigation of the globe just two 

weeks before President Theodore Roosevelt would leave office in 1909.

Accomplishments and Significance

During its 14-month world cruise, the Atlantic battleship fleet steamed 

43,000 miles and made twenty port calls on six continents. Eighteen 

battleships participated in at least part of the tour, fourteen battleships 

made the entire cruise, and two battleships were replaced by two others 

in California. Fourteen thousand Sailors and Marines participated in the 

voyage.

The world cruise was a diplomatic triumph. Besides proving that 

the United States could project its power globally, the tour improved 

relations with many countries, in particular Australia and Japan. The 

visit to Australia led to important personal contacts between Americans 

and Australians while strengthening the sense of shared national interests. The visit to Japan contributed to the friendly relations that resulted 

in the 1908 Root-Takahira Agreement, a diplomatic note in which Japan 

and the United States pledged to uphold the status quo in the Far East 

and the Open Door to trade in China. The good behavior of the enlisted men made a positive impression in every port of call. The cruise 

also fulfilled the President’s hope that the Great White Fleet would help 

educate the American public about naval affairs and stimulate widespread support for the Navy.

The cruise provided Navy personnel with practical experience in 

sea duty and ship handling, leading to improved formation steaming, 

coal economy, and morale. Gunnery exercises doubled the accuracy of 

gunfire in the fleet. At the same time, the tour underscored the dependence of the fleet on foreign colliers as well as the need for coaling stations and auxiliary ships for coaling and resupply.

The circumnavigation, without major mechanical mishap, demonstrated the remarkable cruising capabilities of the American fleet. While 

the cruise did uncover some design flaws—inadequate displacement, 

poor ventilation, and inconveniently placed rapid-fire guns—it did not 

test the capabilities of the battleships to engage in hostile action. In fact, 

the success of the deployment obscured design deficiencies in the battleships when it came to war-fighting: excessive draft, low armor belts, 

large turret openings, and exposed ammunition hoists.
7

OVERVIEW

Shortly after the fleet returned home, the battleships underwent 

major changes in appearance. New cage masts with fire-control tops 

replaced old style masts with fighting tops, and the ships were repainted 

battleship gray. The British HMS Dreadnought, launched in 1906, soon 

made the battleships of Theodore Roosevelt’s Navy obsolete. The Great 

White Fleet became a memory. Its legacy, however, continued on as 

an invigorated national commitment to naval power. It was not long 

before the American people would respond with enthusiasm to a new 

President’s call for “a navy second to none.”

World cruise itinerary 

from USS Vermont. 

Naval Historical Center, 

Roy W. Davis Collection.

Rear Admiral Charles S. Sperry, assuming command in May 1908, served as 

commander in chief of the Great White Fleet from San Francisco to its return 

to Hampton Roads. This photograph was taken in Tokyo, October 1908. 

Naval Historical Center, Photographic Collection.
U.S. Battleship Kentucky, oil painting by Frank Mueller.

Naval Historical Center, Navy Art Collection.
by Robert J. Cressman

The S h i p s

Assuming the presidency in 1901, Theodore Roosevelt, a former Assistant 

Secretary of the Navy and an accomplished naval historian, became commander 

in chief of the “New Navy” characterized by steel hulls and long-range rifled 

guns. Modernization began in the 1880s with cruisers and proceeded to armored 

battleships in the 1890s. During the same period, the Navy’s strategy changed 

from coastal defense and commerce protection to offensive fleet action. The 1898 

Spanish-American War manifested America’s revived naval strength and evoked 

greater understanding of the service and affection for the Navy. By Roosevelt’s 

inauguration, pictures of warships on stereo cards and sailor-suits for children had 

entered American popular culture.

9
10

THE GREAT WHITE FLEET

Battleships

The most powerful warships of their kind built in the United States 

up to that time, the predreadnoughts that made up the imposing U.S. 

Atlantic Fleet reflected the steady progress of battleship design. The 

sixteen first-class battleships represented five separate groups of vessels. 

They included all of the Kearsarge class (Kearsarge

and Kentucky, authorized by Congress on 

March 2, 1895); two of the three Illinois class 

(Illinois and Alabama, authorized June 10, 1896); 

all of the Maine class (Maine, Missouri, and Ohio, 

authorized May 4, 1898, during the war with 

Spain); four of the five Virginia class (Virginia, 

Georgia, New Jersey, and Rhode Island, authorized 

on March 3, 1899, and June 7, 1900); and five of 

the six Connecticut class (Connecticut, Louisiana, 

Vermont, Kansas, and Minnesota, authorized 

on July 1, 1902, and March 3, 1903). Kearsarge

had been in commission the longest time (since 

February 20, 1900); Kansas, the shortest (since 

April 18, 1907). 

A souvenir scarf celebrating the completion of the world cruise. 

Naval Historical Center, Photographic Collection. 
NARRATIVE

11

A four-part folding card with images of 

Rear Admiral Robley D. Evans and the 

original sixteen battleships of the Great 

White Fleet. Navy Department Library, 

Church-Kingery Collection.

U.S. Battleship Connecticut steaming at 

high speed on trials, 1906. Naval Historical 

Center, Photographic Collection. 
12

THE GREAT WHITE FLEET

U.S. Battleship Minnesota, commissioned in 1907, transferred from the Third to the 

First Division at San Francisco. Naval Historical Center, Photographic Collection. 

The earlier classes (Kearsarge, Illinois, and Maine) had been designed principally for coastal defense. The later classes (Virginia and 

Connecticut), by contrast, reflected lessons of the war with Spain, conforming to the authorization bills that called for ships with “the highest 

practicable speed and greatest radius of action.” Thus, the newer ships 

were modern predreadnoughts, truly seagoing battleships designed for 

long distance operations.

The “most powerful ordnance for vessels of this class” consisted of 

13-inch guns (Kearsarge and Illinois classes) and 12-inch guns (Maine, 

Virginia, and Connecticut classes); secondary battery weapons included 

8-, 7-, 6-, and 5-inch guns, while each ship mounted a large number of 

3-inch guns and 6- and 3-pounder rapid-fire batteries to combat the 

swift torpedo boats that most naval tacticians and strategists deemed 

the biggest threat to the battleship. Normal displacement ranged from 

11,540 tons (Kearsarge class) to 16,000 tons (Connecticut class), length 

from 375 ́4 ̋ with a beam of 72 ́3 ̋ (Kearsarge class) to 456 ́4 ̋ with a beam 

of 76 ́10 ̋ (Connecticut class); ships’ complements ranged from 536 men in the Illinois 

class to 827 in the Connecticut class.

U.S. Battleship Missouri,

commissioned in 1903, of 

the Third Division. 

Naval Historical Center, 

Photographic Collection. 
13

THE SHIPS

Excessive coal consumption caused U.S. Battleship Maine, commissioned in 1902, 

of the Third Division, to withdraw from the world cruise at San Francisco. 

U.S. Battleship Kansas, commissioned in 1907, of the First Division. 

All images on this page from the Naval Historical Center, Photographic Collection. 

U.S. Battleship Vermont, commissioned in 1907, of the First Division. U.S. Battleship Connecticut, commissioned in 1906, flagship of the fleet and lead 

ship of the First Division. 
14

THE GREAT WHITE FLEET

U.S. Battleship Kentucky, commissioned in 1900, of the Fourth Division. 

U.S. Battleship Louisiana, commissioned in 1906, was transferred at San Francisco 

from the First to the Third Division to become flagship of the Second Squadron. 

U.S. Battleship Illinois, commissioned in 1901, of the Fourth Division. 

U.S. Battleship Nebraska, commissioned in 1907, joined the Second Division at 

San Francisco.

All images on this page from the Naval Historical Center, Photographic Collection. 
15

THE SHIPS

U.S. Battleship Kearsarge, commissioned in 1900, of the Fourth Division. U.S. Battleship New Jersey, commissioned in 1906, of the Second Division. 

U.S. Battleship Rhode Island, commissioned in 1906, of the Second Division. U.S. Battleship Ohio, commissioned in 1904, of the Third Division. 

All images on this page from the Naval Historical Center, Photographic Collection. 
16

U.S. Battleship Georgia, commissioned in 1906, of the Second Division. 

U.S. Battleship Virginia, commissioned in 1906, transferred 

from the Second to the Third Division at San Francisco. It is 

seen here saluting President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906. 

U.S. Battleship Wisconsin, commissioned in 1901, joined the 

world cruise at San Francisco to become flagship of the 

Fourth Division. 

Because of engineering problems, U.S. Battleship Alabama, 

commissioned in 1900, of the Fourth Division, detached 

before the Great White Fleet departed San Francisco to 

cross the Pacific Ocean. 

All images on this page from the Naval Historical Center, Photographic Collection. 
17

THE SHIPS

Torpedo Boat Destroyers

A flotilla of six torpedo boat destroyers, Hopkins, Hull, Lawrence, 

Stewart, Truxtun, and Whipple, and the supply ship Arethusa transferred from the Atlantic to the Pacific in company with the Great 

White Fleet. Proving themselves reliable seagoing vessels, the 

torpedo boat destroyers—forerunners of today’s guided missile 

destroyers—came from four different classes. Congress had authorized their construction on May 4, 1898, during the war with Spain. 

One ship (Stewart) represented the Navy-designed Bainbridge class; 

the other ships represented private designs: two of the Hopkins class 

(Hopkins and Hull), one Lawrence-class ship (Lawrence), and two of 

the Truxtun class (Truxtun and Whipple). Carrying a main battery 

of two 3-inch guns with a secondary battery of either five or six 

“6-pounders,” each torpedo boat destroyer mounted two 18-inch 

torpedo tubes. Displacing between 408 and 433 tons, and measuring between 248 ́ and 260 ́ in length with beams ranging from 23 ́3 ̋ to 

24 ́6 ̋, these swift (29–30 

knot) warships carried crews 

of between seventy-one and 

seventy-three men. 

Postcard. William Stewart Collection.

U.S. Torpedo Boat Destroyer Truxtun at anchor. Naval Historical Center, Photographic Collection. 
18

THE GREAT WHITE FLEET

U.S. Torpedo Boat Destroyer Hopkins at anchor, circa 1904. U.S. Torpedo Boat Destroyer Lawrence at anchor, circa 1903–1908. 

U.S. Supply Ship Arethusa off New York City, October 3, 1911. U.S. Torpedo Boat Destroyer Hull at anchor, May 2, 1907. 

All images on this page from the Naval Historical Center, Photographic Collection. 
19

Postcard of U.S. Torpedo Boat Destroyer Whipple, Boston, Massachusetts. 

Naval Historical Center, Roy W. Davis Collection.
20

THE GREAT WHITE FLEET

Fleet Auxiliaries

A decade before the sailing of the Great White Fleet, the war with 

Spain demonstrated the U.S. Navy’s requirements for auxiliary vessels 

such as supply, hospital, refrigerator, water distilling, and repair ships. 

After the war, the Navy incorporated a greater number of auxiliaries 

into the fleet. Congressional appropriations in the years between the 

Spanish-American War and World War I provided for an unprecedented level of new construction of auxiliary ships necessary to maintain a 

fleet on deployments around the world.

U.S. Repair Ship Panther. 

Naval Historical Center, Photographic Collection.

U.S. Yacht Yankton.

Naval Historical Center, 

Photographic Collection. 
21

THE SHIPS

U.S. Hospital Ship Relief. Naval Historical Center, Photographic Collection. 

U.S. Supply Ship Glacier.

Naval Historical Center, Roy W. Davis Collection.

U.S. Supply Ship Culgoa at Boston, 

Massachusetts, October 1, 1901.

Naval Historical Center, 

Photographic Collection. 
Shipmates. William Stewart Collection.
by Michael J. Crawford

The S a i l or s

There has been ordered supplied to you upon arrival at Port of Spain, Trinidad, 750 gallons of coal 

tar, 90 gallons of varnish, 400 pounds of sulphur, 4 sets of razors complete, 18 brushes, 4 sets of fine 

rib saws, 4 surgical knives, 2 large meat axes and 15 pairs of handcuffs.

NOT IC E POST ED ON T H E BAT T L ESH I P LOU ISI A NA’S SC U T T L EBU T T 

On December 19, 1907, just three days out of Hampton Roads, every ship in the 

Great White Fleet received a wireless message from “King Neptune,” warning it to 

be ready to receive the ruler of the deep on crossing the equator. In the days leading 

up to the event, additional messages relayed through Neptune’s official representative, “Fore Topmast,” raised the crews’ anticipation by intimating to all “landlubbers, pollywogs, and sea lawyers” how unpleasant the initiation rites would be, and 

how even less pleasant would be the consequences for anyone who sought to avoid 

23
24

THE GREAT WHITE FLEET

those rites. Finally, January 6 arrived, and at 

37o11 ́ W longitude, the ships of the Great 

White Fleet crossed 0o latitude. Each ship’s 

commanding officer turned command over 

to Neptune, who came on board with his 

wife and fantastically dressed retainers. 

Throughout the fleet more than twelve thousand Sailors underwent examination by the 

royal surgeons, a shave with an oversized 

razor, a long descent into a pool of water, and 

a ritual bath, from which they emerged no 

longer pollywogs but shellbacks inducted into 

the Order of the Deep.1

In one form or another, similar rough 

play dated to the earliest days of seafaring and 

has been practiced by the United States Navy 

from its beginning. John Adams witnessed a 

“crossing-the-line” ceremony during a 

transatlantic passage in the Continental 

Navy frigate Boston during the War of 

Independence.2

 The ritual, as performed 

in the frigate Essex during the War of 1812, included all the standard 

elements: Neptune and his wife drawn in a carriage, retainers with 

their bodies painted, barbers with razors made of iron hoops, and baths 

in a ship’s boat filled with water.3

 The crossing of the line in the Great 

White Fleet may have been more elaborate than usual, but it bound the 

new steel Navy of 1907 firmly to the ancient traditions of the sea.

Officers and crew of U.S. Battleship Vermont, 1909. Naval Historical Center, 

Roy W. Davis Collection.
25

THE SAILORS

Sailors of the navy of wood and canvas would have found many 

aspects of life in the navy of steel and steam familiar. As was customary, the stern hand of discipline ruled firmly, and commanding officers granted liberty infrequently. Men still slept in hammocks in 

1907 and would continue to do so until the eve of the Second World 

War. Herman Melville, who served as an ordinary seaman in the frigate United States in the 1840s, observed that “of all men-of-war, the 

American ships are the most excessively neat, and have the greatest 

reputation for it” and protested the inflexibility of the practice of cleaning the spar deck every morning, whatever the weather.4

 Their passion 

for cleanliness continued to distinguish Sailors in 1907. Sailors were 

holystoning the decks each morning and would be swabbing decks late 

into the twentieth century. One experienced bluejacket in the Great 

White Fleet opined: 

Man-o’-war cleanliness is different from any other that I 

know. I distinguish it from all other kinds because it is the most 

searching and far reaching thing of the kind in the world. . . . 

All must be immaculately clean, and this habit is so thoroughly 

ingrained in the men that to maintain it they will even commit 

crime. . . . For uncleanliness a man would be stripped naked and 

his skin scrubbed with sand and canvas . . . and sometimes with 

ki-yar brushes, by two husky bos’n’s mates.5

Despite things still familiar to older veterans, many aspects of the 

new Navy made sea service fundamentally different from the Navy 

of the previous century. Take the basic facts of the motive power by 

which ships moved through the water. The amount of provisions a 

sailing warship carried principally limited the length of time it could 

Electrician Roy W. Davis and shipmate from U.S. Battleship Vermont, 1908.

Naval Historical Center, Roy W. Davis Collection.
cruise. As long as potable water and victuals held out, a sailing ship 

could remain at sea. In contrast, a steam-powered warship could cruise 

only as long as there was coal in its bunkers. Frequent stops for coaling 

became a part of every cruising plan.

The Navy of Theodore Roosevelt underwent an extraordinary and 

rapid transformation that created an environment for sea service very 

different from what had preceded. As change is a constant in human 

society, it is easy to describe any period as a time of transition from one era 

to another. The changes in naval service during the first decade of the 

twentieth century, however, proved so sweeping as to constitute a revolution. Conditions in the ships of the Great White Fleet exemplified the 

transition from the nineteenth-century to the twentieth-century Navy.

Consider provisions and messing arrangements. From earliest times, 

deep-sea Sailors had lived on provisions preserved in barrels: salted beef 

and pork, dried peas, ship’s biscuit—as hard as concrete and laden with 

Lt. B. A. Long and Lt. S. M. Robinson of U.S. Battleship Connecticut, 

with crew of sailing launch in Magdalena Bay, Mexico. 

Naval Historical Center, Photographic Collection.

This is one of a series of some one thousand photographs 

taken by H.O. Brown and J. Schaffer, two of USS 

Georgia’s musicians, during the cruise of the Great White 

Fleet. Subsequently the two men copyrighted many of 

the images and marketed them in the form of postcards. 

William Stewart Collection.

26
27

THE SAILORS

weevils—and cheese that grew moldy and filled 

with worms that came in two flavors, distinguished 

by eye color. The main innovation in the seafarers’ 

diet in the nineteenth century came from the practical implementation of the eighteenth-century discovery of the antiscorbutic virtues of citrus fruits. 

Then, on the eve of the twentieth century, the 

Navy introduced seaborne refrigeration, placing a 

world of possibilities on the Sailors’ menu. In 1893, 

shipyards fitted out Maine, Cincinnati, Puritan, and 

Terror with refrigerated storerooms, ice-machine 

compartments, white-tiled galleys, and coal ranges. 

The year 1898 saw the introduction of the Navy’s 

first refrigerator ships, Glacier, Culgoa, and Celtic.

The first two accompanied the Great White Fleet 

around the world, and Celtic joined the ships of 

the fleet that aided the earthquake and tidal wave 

victims in Messina, Sicily. Improvements in refrigeration made possible an experiment in the battleship 

Texas with a general mess for all the enlisted that replaced the traditional 

system of numerous messes of fewer than a dozen men each who rotated 

the responsibility for cooking. Success of that experiment prompted the 

Navy’s Bureau of Supplies and Accounts to recommend adoption of the 

general mess and to report the need for a more liberal and flexible food 

allowance, with a variety of food items. Congress embodied these recommendations in a new Navy rations law in 1902. That same year Paymaster 

F. T. Arms published the first mess manual, which included recipes for 

fresh roast beef and apple pie. Each squadron was assigned a supply ship 

Ready for landing force duty. William Stewart Collection.
28

THE GREAT WHITE FLEET

to provide increased space for perishables. In 1906 President Roosevelt, 

having read Upton Sinclair’s muckraking novel The Jungle (which graphically described unsanitary conditions in American meatpacking plants), 

ordered an investigation of the so-called Beef Trust. The findings led 

Congress to pass the Meat Inspection Act of 1906. The following year, 

the Bureau of Animal Industry began inspection of canned and fresh 

meat sold to the Navy.6

 At the time, the Navy also created a school for 

cooks and bakers at the Newport, Rhode Island Training Station. 

These changes made it possible for Sailors in the Great White Fleet 

to eat palatable and healthy meals most days and to enjoy holiday feasts 

that inspired paeans like the following manuscript poem found in the 

papers of Roy W. Davis, an electrician in the battleship Vermont:

Thanksgiving Day in the Fleet

Thanksgiving Day, the bo’sun’s pipe / Is answered double quick.

Each wearer of the uniform / Is eager for his trick.

For talk about our millionaires / And what they have to eat

It can’t compare with what we eat / Thanksgiving in the fleet.

The turkey’s roasted crisp and brown / Enough for every man.

The apple, mince, and pumpkin pies / All baked a golden tan.

Potatoes mashed & cranberry sauce / And celery and cake

That’s almost rich enough to be / The kind our mothers make.

And candy, nuts, and fine cigars / And coffee, too, with cream.

O, dinner on a warship is / A gastronomic dream.

For weeks before Thanksgiving Day / We talk about its joys

For dear old Uncle Sam you bet / Is good to all his boys.7

It was more than the food that Uncle Sam’s boys were fed that 

changed. The boys being fed were different, for the size, work, classification, and character of the enlisted force underwent a metamorphosis, 

beginning with the introduction of steam power before the Civil War 

and accelerating in pace at the turn of the century. 

Ratings changed as the skills needed evolved. Seamen were no 

longer needed who could reef sails, but electricians who knew how to 

operate electrical apparatuses were. Between 1866 and 1904, sixtythree new ratings were established, forty-four were disestablished, and 

another thirty-eight changed. In 1897, there were seventy-one ratings 

and by 1910, there were eighty-eight. Growth came principally in the 

skilled trades and engine-room responsibilities, while the number in 

the seaman’s branch declined.8

The number of Sailors burgeoned after the Spanish-American War. 

On the eve of that conflict, the enlisted force stood at ten thousand 

men. As of 1903, the number had jumped to twenty-eight thousand, 

and during the world cruise it reached nearly thirty-nine thousand. That 

constituted a nearly fourfold increase in a single decade.

The Navy had always recruited from the eastern seaboard. Now, it 

made up for the increased demand for hands by reaching inland. Between 

1890 and 1906, the percentage of recruits that the non-Atlantic seaboard 

states provided rose thirty points, from 6.4 percent to 37 percent.

The Navy sought solid, patriotic young men who possessed or 

could develop technical proficiencies. To attract these types of recruits, 

the Navy purposely improved living conditions, sponsoring such activities as organized sports and establishing a system of ship libraries. At 

the same time, with the victories of the Spanish-American War and the 

increasingly powerful battle fleet, the Navy came in national conscious-
29

THE SAILORS

Athletic contests—boat races, sparring matches, and foot races—exercised and entertained 

bluejackets of the Great White Fleet. Naval Historical Center, Roy W. Davis Collection.
30

THE GREAT WHITE FLEET

ness to embody the country’s might. Pro-Navy sentiment benefited 

recruiting across the United States. 

Whatever the significance of the world cruise for U.S. international 

relations, and whatever its significance for the Navy as an institution, 

imagine what participation meant individually to the fourteen thousand Sailors and Marines who circumnavigated the globe in the Great 

White Fleet. They had joined the Navy and, literally, seen the world. 

Consider the reaction of Frank B. Lesher, for instance, an electrician 

in USS Virginia. In a letter home Lesher marveled, “It all seems a sort 

of a dream to me now that it is over with but never-the-less the cold 

fact remains that I have been to Cairo and have stood upon the Sahara 

Desert while the pyramids built over forty centuries ago gazed down 

upon me.”9

The Sailors came home and eventually left the Navy. Some, like 

Davis, married the sweethearts to whom they had written from halfway around the world. They went into civilian life: Davis, for instance, 

worked for Bell Telephone Laboratories and the Improved Paper 

Machinery Company;10 Lesher rose to the rank of chief petty officer but 

left the Navy in 1913 to found an electrical contracting firm—still in 

operation today—in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.11 Some, like Davis 

and Lesher, preserved their souvenirs; most retained to their deaths at 

least their memories of the cruise. 

The good conduct the Americans displayed when on liberty left 

a positive impression in every port of call around the world. Similarly, 

the patriotism with which the Sailors of the Great White Fleet wore 

the uniform made an impression on their character that they carried 

throughout their lives.

The Great White Fleet’s Sailors bridged two worlds. They could 

look back to a Navy that had recently converted from sail to steam and 

from wooden to steel hulls. They experienced rapid changes in the conditions of naval service. And most lived to see the even greater transformations brought about by submarines and aircraft carriers. Conditions 

in today’s fleet are dramatically improved over those in the 1907 battle 

fleet. Sailors’ rights are better protected under the current Uniform 

Code of Military Justice than they were under the Articles of War. Now 

officers and enlisted of the modern Navy interact on a more egalitarian 

level than did naval personnel one hundred years ago. Yet one hundred 

years after the world cruise of the Great White Fleet, United States 

Navy personnel continue to take part in ancient seafaring traditions 

like the crossing-the-line ceremony, piping the side, and gun salutes. 

Through naval traditions, today’s Sailors and Marines can feel an affinity with those who sailed around the world in 1907 and share an identity with all who proudly wore the uniform before them in any of the 

Navy’s warships, whether powered by wind, steam, or nuclear fission.
Brown and Schaffer photographs of 

daily life on board battleship Georgia

of the Great White Fleet. 

William Stewart Collection.

31
Postcard. Stephen and Michiko Levine Collection.
33

On the warm, cloudy morning of December 16, 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt 

stood on the weather deck of the presidential yacht Mayflower, anchored in the waters 

of Hampton Roads, Virginia. He flashed his famous broad, toothy smile and thought 

how “bully” it was to see a mighty armada of U.S. battleships passing in review before him. The President, and indeed the throngs of onlookers gathered on shore, felt 

a great sense of pride and exhilaration as sixteen battleships of the U.S. Atlantic 

Fleet, all painted white, save for gilded bows and buff-colored superstructures, 

steamed in a long majestic column out of Hampton Roads to the open sea, flanked by 

their attending auxiliary ships.12

Narrative

by J02 Mike McKinley
34

THE GREAT WHITE FLEET

To the familiar strains of “The Girl I left Behind Me,” the procession 

of battleships passed before the President at 400-yard intervals with their 

crews smartly manning the rails. This newly designated battle fleet was 

made up of ships commissioned since the end of the Spanish-American 

War. They were Kearsarge, Kentucky, Illinois, Alabama, Maine, Missouri, 

Ohio, Virginia, Georgia, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Louisiana, 

Vermont, Kansas, and Minnesota.

The two squadrons of two divisions each, later dubbed the “Great 

White Fleet,” were manned by 14,000 Sailors and Marines under the command of Rear Admiral Robley D. “Fighting Bob” Evans. All were embarking upon a naval deployment the scale of which had never been attempted 

by any nation before—the first round-the-world cruise by a fleet of steampowered, steel battleships. The 43,000 mile, 14-month circumnavigation 

would include twenty port calls on six continents; it is widely considered 

one of the greatest peacetime achievements of the U.S. Navy.

The idea of sending the new battle fleet around the world was 

the brainchild of the energetic “Teddy” Roosevelt, former colonel of the 

Rough Riders and one-time Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Assuming 

the presidency after the assassination of President William McKinley 

in 1901, Roosevelt brought to the White House a deep conviction 

that only through a strong navy could a nation project its power and 

prestige abroad.

In 1898, at the end of the Spanish-American War, the United States 

was thrust into the mainstream of international affairs and gained status 

as a world power, acquiring as possessions the Philippines and Guam 

in the Pacific, and Puerto Rico in the Caribbean. In 1904, the United 

President Roosevelt reviews the Atlantic Fleet from the 

presidential yacht Mayflower. William Stewart Collection.
35

NARRATIVE

States also established a naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to ensure 

the safety of the Panama Canal, then under construction.

Roosevelt stressed upgrading and expanding the U.S. fleet in order 

to protect American interests abroad. From 1904 to 1907, American 

shipyards turned out eleven new battleships to give the Navy awesome 

capabilities. This proved timely, for in 1907 hostilities with Japan seemed 

possible; the Japanese Navy dominated the Pacific and posed a potential 

threat to the Philippines.

America’s problems with Japan arose shortly after Roosevelt mediated the Treaty of Portsmouth in 1906, ending the Russo-Japanese War. 

In that conflict the Russian fleet had been annihilated by the Japanese. 

But despite their triumphs over the Russians on the high seas, the 

Japanese failed to get all they believed they deserved at the peace table 

and blamed Roosevelt.

Roosevelt did not want a break with Japan, as the United States 

was ill-prepared for war. Most of our battle fleet was concentrated in 

the Atlantic, with only a handful of armored cruisers in the Pacific. In 

the event of war with Japan, this small Asiatic squadron would have to 

abandon the Philippines for West Coast ports until the United States 

had strength enough to go on the offensive.

Thus, to reassure residents of the West Coast that the U.S. Navy 

could protect them, Roosevelt ordered the Atlantic battleship fleet to 

shift to the Pacific.

The President also wanted to find out in what condition the fleet 

would be after such a transit. As he stated before the fleet’s departure, 

“I want all failures, blunders and shortcomings to be made apparent in 

time of peace and not in time of war.” U.S. Battleship Connecticut leading the Atlantic Fleet to sea. 

Naval Historical Center, Photographic Collection. 
Officers and ratings buying parrots in Port of Spain, Trinidad, West Indies, the 

fleet’s first stop, December 23, 1907. Around the World, 33.

Producing thick black smoke, the fleet steamed out of Hampton Roads on December 16, 1907. Naval Historical Center, Photographic Collection.

But, more important, Roosevelt believed that a successful cruise of 

this magnitude would provide the American people with an example of 

U.S. naval preparedness, strength, and reach. Such an impression, he hoped, 

would help gain the desired appropriations for four more battleships.

Although the original announcement of the cruise did not state that 

after reaching the West Coast the fleet would proceed westward around 

the globe, discussion of that intention in the public media reflected a 

general understanding of American goals.

Once plans for the cruise became public, not everyone was impressed. 

Some critics thought this show of force would encourage a Japanese attack 

on the fleet. Others worried that the Atlantic naval defenses would be 

weakened by taking away so many ships. Some reasoned that since the 

Panama Canal was unfinished, the ships would have to pass through the 

Strait of Magellan, an area that posed considerable danger because of tricky 

currents and great storms.

36
37

NARRATIVE

Senator Eugene Hale from Maine, chairman of the Naval Affairs 

Committee, threatened to withhold money for the cruise. The undeterred Roosevelt replied in his typically brusque and forthright fashion 

that he already had sufficient funding to get the fleet to the Pacific, and 

if the Congress wanted the fleet to return to the Atlantic, they would 

have to authorize additional funding.

Nobody took Roosevelt up on his challenge and the Great White 

Fleet got underway that December morning, with its stacks spewing billowing clouds of black coal smoke into the gray sky. On board the flagship Connecticut, Rear Admiral Evans looked out with pride upon the 

majestic fleet under his command. He had stated earlier that his ships 

“were ready at the drop of a hat for a feast, a frolic or a fight”.

Late on the first day of steaming, Evans passed the word to the officers and men of the fleet that after a short stay on the West Coast, the 

fleet would return home by way of the Pacific, through the Suez Canal, 

into the Mediterranean and then to the Atlantic. In short, they would 

be circumnavigating the globe. When this announcement became general knowledge the next day, countries throughout the world tendered 

their invitations for the fleet to visit their ports.

The first leg of the cruise took the fleet into the South Atlantic. 

On December 23 the fleet made its first port visit, at Port of Spain in 

Trinidad, a small island off the coast of Venezuela. 

On January 6, 1908, the fleet steamed across the equator and 

crossing-the-line ceremonies made up the plan of the day. Some 

12,000 sailors were introduced to Davy Jones. Following traditional 

initiation rights that included suffering through various indignities to 

make them worthy, all were welcomed into the exalted realm of 

King Neptune. 

When the Great White Fleet crossed the 

equator, King Neptune and his entourage 

paid a visit to each ship to induct those who 

had never crossed the line into the Order of 

the Deep. William Stewart Collection.

Senator Eugene Hale from Maine, chairman of the Naval Affairs 

Committee, threatened to withhold money for the cruise. The 

undeterred Roosevelt replied in his typically brusque and forthright 

fashion that he already had sufficient funding to get the fleet to the 

Pacific, and if the Congress wanted the fleet to return to the Atlantic, it 

would have to authorize additional funding.

Nobody took Roosevelt up on his challenge, and the Great White 

Fleet got underway that December morning, with its stacks billowing clouds of black coal smoke into the gray sky. On board the flagship 

Connecticut, Rear Admiral Evans looked out with pride upon the majestic fleet under his command. He had stated earlier that his ships “were 

ready at the drop of a hat for a feast, a frolic or a fight.”

Late on the first day of steaming, Evans passed the word to the 

officers and enlisted men of the fleet that after a short stay on the West 

Coast, the fleet would return home by way of the Pacific, through the 

Suez Canal, into the Mediterranean, and then to the Atlantic. In short, 

they would be circumnavigating the globe. When this announcement 

became general knowledge the next day, countries throughout the world 

tendered invitations for the fleet to visit their ports.

The first leg of the cruise took the fleet into the South Atlantic. 

On December 23, the fleet made its first port visit, at Port of Spain in 

Trinidad, a small island off the coast of Venezuela. 

On January 6, 1908, the fleet steamed across the equator and 

crossing-the-line ceremonies made up the plan of the day. Some 

twelve thousand Sailors were introduced to Davy Jones. Following traditional initiation rites that included suffering through various indignities to make them worthy, all were welcomed into the exalted realm of 

King Neptune. 
38

THE GREAT WHITE FLEET

In a tradition carried on from ancient times to the present 

day, Sailors who first cross the equator (or in earlier times, 

the Tropic of Cancer) go through a ritual induction into the 

Order of the Deep. The ceremony is a diversion from shipboard 

routine, affording an opportunity for considerable sport and 

good humor. The photographs seen here show an inductee 

being shaved and then bathed in a pool. He was one of the 

thousands in the fleet who underwent the initiation rites 

into the realm of King Neptune on January 6, 1908. 

Naval Historical Center, Roy W. Davis Collection.
39

NARRATIVE

Oil painting by G. Dall’aros of units of the Great White Fleet in the harbor of Rio de Janeiro, 

with the Brazilian protected cruiser Almirante Tamandaré in the foreground, January 1908.

Naval Historical Center, Photographic Collection.

Each inductee received both a shellback 

certificate and a wallet card. Naval 

Historical Center, Photographic Collection; 

Navy Department Library, ZC Files, 

USS Maine.
40

THE GREAT WHITE FLEET

The fleet anchored in Rio de Janeiro 

on January 12. Unfortunately, there was 

an incident the first night that came 

close to shattering goodwill between the 

U.S. Navy and Brazil. 

It all began in one of Rio’s rowdier 

drinking establishments when two local 

longshoremen got into an argument. In 

expressing his particular point of view, 

one of the longshoremen threw a bottle 

at the other. The missile sailed past the 

intended target and continued its flight 

across the smoke-filled room. At the bar, 

a group of Great White Fleet Sailors 

were enjoying a drink and good conversation when the wayward bottle found 

a target—a Sailor from Louisiana. The 

rest was right out of a Hollywood movie. 

Sailors rallied around the victim, the 

longshoremen called up their reserves, 

and the battle was joined.

When the shore patrol arrived, the donnybrook had flowed out into 

the street, as longshoremen and Sailors threw rocks and bricks at each 

other. Shore patrol and local police brought about order, separated the 

combatants, and escorted the Sailors back to their ships.

The next day, during an inquiry, Louisiana’s master-at-arms testified that the “civilians seemed to be the aggressors.” After all the 

evidence was in, Brazilian officials agreed with this assessment and, 

U.S. Battleships Vermont and Kansas entering the harbor of Rio de Janeiro. 

Naval Historical Center, Roy W. Davis Collection.
41

NARRATIVE

The U.S. Atlantic Fleet entering the Strait of Magellan, February 1908. Naval Historical Center, Photographic Collection. 
42

THE GREAT WHITE FLEET

The American Fleet in the Strait of Magellan the Morning of February 8, 1908, oil painting by Henry Reuterdahl.

United States Naval Academy Collection. 
43

NARRATIVE

to improve relations, publicly invited the 

American Sailors to continue to enjoy Rio.

There were no further incidents while the 

fleet was in Rio. Many of the Sailors participated in local political parades, marching gleefully 

with the locals and shouting slogans they probably did not remotely understand. Brazilian 

President Affonso Augusto Moreira Penna gave 

high praise to what he termed “the glorious 

American Navy,” and Penna’s foreign minister 

described the visiting fleet as “the pride of 

the continent.”

During the Rio visit, Evans suffered an 

attack of gout, an affliction that plagued him throughout the voyage and 

would be responsible for his being relieved of command when the fleet 

reached San Francisco.

Even before the fleet arrived at Trinidad, wild rumors about threats 

to the ships had reached the Secretary of the Navy. In Rio, the chief of 

police had been advised, through unknown sources, that anarchists were 

plotting to blow up the fleet. Nothing came of it, although Washington 

did cable for details. These rumors, which gave the folks back home the 

impression that the Great White Fleet was in constant peril, came to an 

end after it entered the Pacific Ocean.

On January 21, the fleet weighed anchor and got underway, leaving 

Rio and setting a course for the Strait of Magellan near the southern tip 

of South America.

There, rumor had it, massive whirlpools could twist a ship completely around. Winds, known as williwaws, were said to be so wild that 

Coaling ship was a dirty job that lasted several days. Derricks lowered bags of coal into 

bunkers, and Sailors spread out the coal with shovels. It took several days more to clean 

the coal dust that covered everything and everyone. William Stewart Collection.
Electrician Leslie Haines, in USS Connecticut, wrote home about the “genuine 

bullfight” he and hundreds of other bluejackets attended in Lima, Peru, as “something 

I will never forget and never want to witness again for it was too genuine for me. Six 

bulls, two men, and one horse were killed in about two hours’ time” (Haines, 50). 

Naval Historical Center, Roy W. Davis Collection.

44
45

NARRATIVE

ships would be dashed to pieces on the rocky shores of such nightmarishly labeled places as Delusion Bay, Desolation Island, Point Famine, 

and Dislocation Point. One newspaper in California, the Sacramento 

Union, prophesied shipwreck and worse should the Great White Fleet 

attempt the Strait. 

The Chilean cruiser Chacabuco met the fleet at Punta Arenas, 

Chile, and after the fleet had coaled there, guided it through the Strait. 

Despite considerable fog and wind, the fleet completed its passage 

without mishap and encountered none of the calamities conjured up by 

the over-active imaginations of newspaper editors. Now in the South 

Pacific, the fleet set its track for Peru, following a naval parade through 

the harbor of Valparaiso, Chile.

Although normal day-to-day routine and training evolutions kept 

the Sailors busy while underway, there were diversions after hours for 

those not on watch. Aboard the ships were pianos and phonographs, 

various games, plenty of playing cards, and handball and billiard equipment. There were also player pianos and silent movies.

In referring to the movies, a fleet veteran assigned to Connecticut

remarked, “They had one they showed us about fifty times . . . The Perils 

of Pauline. It was a film series. They might show number nine one day 

and then show number forty-seven the next. But we enjoyed it anyway; 

she was always in some kind of fix, getting thrown off cliffs and things 

like that.” 

On February 20, the fleet pulled in to Callao, Peru, just north of 

Lima. Their arrival sparked a nine-day celebration that included commemoration of George Washington’s birthday, a holiday the Peruvians 

felt they should share with their American friends to the north. 

Peruvian composer Cesar Penizo paid homage to the fleet by composing a special dance piece entitled “The White Squadron.” To help the 

American Sailors feel at home, a small tugboat roved about the anchored ships, its passengers regaling the Great White Fleet crews with 

lively renditions of Cornell University football cheers. 

Having absorbed an abundance of Peruvian hospitality, the fleet 

reluctantly got up steam to continue its journey northward to California, 

with an intermediate one-month stopover at Magdalena Bay, Mexico, 

for gunnery practice.

The fleet arrived on March 12 for its gunnery exercises at 

Magdalena Bay, while California’s coastal cities tried everything in their 

power to get the fleet into their ports. Ulysses S. Grant Jr., a noted citizen of San Diego, went so far as to write Roosevelt to request that the 

fleet steam directly into San Diego harbor instead of anchoring 

at Coronado.

The President took this request under consideration and contacted 

the Navy Department about the possibility. Word came back that, 

should the fleet attempt anchoring in San Diego harbor, there was a 

good chance that the ships would remain permanently mired in the 

mud. Thus, Grant and his fellow San Diegans had to be content with 

greeting the fleet at Coronado.

When the fleet pulled in on April 14, thousands of enthusiastic 

residents welcomed the Sailors as the great ships anchored off the Hotel 

del Coronado. Small boats of all descriptions surrounded the warships, 

and Sailors were pelted with blossoms by “Flower Committees” and 

filled to capacity with free lemonade by “Fruit Committees.” For the 

next four days, San Diego celebrated, and the Sailors received the royal 

treatment that ended only with the fleet’s departure for Los Angeles on 

April 18, 1908.
46

THE GREAT WHITE FLEET

Making a gunnery target. Naval Historical Center, Roy W. Davis Collection.

Firing at targets. William Stewart Collection.

Erecting targets. Naval Historical Center, Roy W. Davis Collection.
47

NARRATIVE

A 6-inch gun crew. William Stewart Collection.

Prize-winning crew. William Stewart Collection.

Tallying results of U.S. Battleship Tennessee’s shooting. Naval Historical Center, 

Roy W. Davis Collection.
48

THE GREAT WHITE FLEET

In Los Angeles, the officers and men enjoyed 

such entertainment as a giant Spanish barbecue, a 

breathtaking balloon ascension by a group of daring aeronauts, and a number of prize fights between 

well-known local pugilists. 

Meantime, as the fleet was being pampered and 

honored by the good citizens of Los Angeles, Santa 

Cruz, to the north, geared up for its welcome to the 

fleet and attempted to crowd out rival Monterey just 

across the bay. But when the Santa Cruz townsmen got the 

word that only part of the fleet would be visiting their community, 

they became so upset that they threatened to call off the entire 

reception if they were not visited by all the ships. The Navy 

relented and Santa Cruz got its wish, after the fleet visited Santa 

Barbara and Monterey. 

With their city the announced West Coast destination when 

the fleet departed Hampton Roads, San Franciscans had made 

extensive preparations for a lavish welcome. They made even 

more elaborate welcoming plans on learning that Secretary of 

the Navy Victor H. Metcalf would arrive to review the fleet, and 

that the Pacific and Atlantic Fleets would sail into the harbor 

together. 

When the fleet arrived in San Francisco on May 6, the hills 

surrounding the City by the Bay were packed with hundreds of 

thousands of greeters, many brought in by special trains from 

outlying communities. San Francisco greeted the fleet in a warmhearted and ostentatious fashion by staging a 48-hour ball at the 

luxurious Fairmont Hotel (where dinners normally went for ten 

The Atlantic Fleet in San Francisco Harbor, by Henry Reuterdahl, for Collier’s magazine. 

William Stewart Collection.

“I am going out to see the big trees 

[California redwoods] tomorrow on 

an excursion and will get back the day 

after.” Electrician Leslie Haines in USS 

Connecticut, to his parents, May 2, 1908 

(Haines, 54). Naval Historical Center, 

Roy W. Davis Collection.
“We had an excellent time in Los Angeles 

and were sorry to leave so soon. . . . We were 

entertained with baseball, dancing boxing 

bouts . . . Wild West shows, Theatres, Spanish 

Barbecues, Auto Rides and in fact the whole city 

was thrown open to us free of charge.” Electrician 

Leslie Haines, in USS Connecticut, to his parents, 

April 27, 1908 (Haines, 53). Naval Historical 

Center, Roy W. Davis Collection.

Sailors of the Great White Fleet parade in Santa Barbara, California, April 1908. 

Naval Historical Center, Photographic Collection. 

49
50

THE GREAT WHITE FLEET

The Great White Fleet steaming in line ahead, about to pass through the Golden Gate, San Francisco Bay, May 6, 1908.

Naval Historical Center, Photographic Collection.
51

NARRATIVE

dollars per plate). The officers and enlisted men of the Great White 

Fleet were treated to a welcome they would long remember. Citizens 

went so far as to pitch tents in Jefferson Square and Portsmouth Square 

for Great White Fleet Sailors who ran out of hotel money. 

While in San Francisco, the battleships Maine and Alabama were 

replaced by Nebraska and Wisconsin. The reason behind this change was 

Maine’s and Alabama’s voracious appetite for coal. They seemed to eat 

up more “black diamonds” than any other ships in the fleet.

San Francisco was also the last port of call for fleet commander 

Evans, still suffering from gout. He was relieved by Rear Admiral 

Charles M. Thomas, who after one week in command handed the fleet 

over to his successor, Rear Admiral Charles S. Sperry. After eleven days 

in San Francisco, the fleet, under Sperry’s command, sailed for Puget 

Sound and conducted port calls in Seattle, Bellingham, and Tacoma, 

Washington. An estimated four hundred thousand people gathered 

from Washington, its surrounding states, and British Columbia to view 

the grand parade of Sailors through Seattle’s main street. Selected 

ships then went into dock at Bellingham to clean marine growth from 

their underwater hulls, while the remainder returned directly to San 

Francisco and docked there to prepare for the rest of the cruise.

U.S. Battleship Connecticut leads the fleet 

into San Francisco Bay, May 6, 1908.

Naval Historical Center, Photographic Collection. 

“Everywhere the people were gathered to see the fleet come. Golden Gate Park was 

a black mass of people, and everywhere they gathered by the thousands.” Electrician 

Frank Lesher, in USS Virginia, to his father, May 7, 1908 (Lesher Letters). William 

Stewart Collection.
52

THE GREAT WHITE FLEET

Crewmen of U.S. Battleship Maine parade through downtown San Francisco, May 7, 1908.

Naval Historical Center, Photographic Collection.
53

NARRATIVE

Postcard commemorating the visit of U.S. Battleship Vermont to San Francisco, 

sent by Electrician Roy W. Davis to his future wife, Etta M. Cowles, June 1908. 

Naval Historical Center, Roy W. Davis Collection.

Sailor with one of a number of bear cubs presented to 

the fleet by the city of Seattle, Washington, May 1908.

William Stewart Collection.
The Great White Fleet departing Puget Sound, Washington, May 27, 1908.

Naval Historical Center, Photographic Collection. 

“We keep adding a little to our host of pets in most every port and the 

Conn. begins to look more like a menagerie than a warship. Our list now 

stands as follows—six dogs all breeds, about the same number of cats, a 

pig . . . parrots and a monkey from Trinidad, a black bear from Seattle, a 

kangaroo, an eagle, two native opossums, and more parrots, from Sydney. 

The Elecs have a pair of white rats from Los Angeles, two Angora goats 

from Punta Arenas and one from Santa Barbara and a raccoon from Rio.” 

Electrician Leslie Haines, in USS Connecticut, to his parents, 

August 26, 1908 (Haines, 61). William Stewart Collection.

54
55

NARRATIVE

Postcard collected in Hawaii. Naval Historical Center, Roy W. Davis Collection.
56

THE GREAT WHITE FLEET

Postcard sent from Honolulu, Hawaii, by Electrician Roy W. Davis, in U.S. Battleship Vermont, to his 

future wife, Etta M. Cowles, July 22, 1908. Naval Historical Center, Roy W. Davis Collection.
57

NARRATIVE

Front and back panels of the 

official program for the reception 

of the U.S. fleet in Auckland, 

New Zealand, August 1908. 

Naval Historical Center, 

Roy W. Davis Collection.
58

THE GREAT WHITE FLEET

The fleet visit up and down the West Coast 

lasted one week shy of three months. That part 

of the cruise included constant festivities, with 

everyone, sailor and civilian alike, celebrating 

this great adventure. On July 7 the fleet, now 

reassembled under Rear Admiral Sperry, bid 

farewell to San Francisco and weighed anchor 

to continue its journey across the Pacific.

On July 16, the fleet arrived in Hawaii. 

After a six-day layover at Pearl Harbor, where 

it was feted with luaus and sailing regattas, the 

great armada got underway for New Zealand, 

anchoring in Auckland on August 9. 

The New Zealanders gave the fleet a very 

warm reception and invited Sperry and his staff 

to observe tribal ceremonies at a Maori village. 

At the conclusion of the traditional Maori welcome to a warrior, the haka, one Maori warrior 

came forward. Halting before the admiral and his staff, the Maori 

dancer broke into a broad, toothy smile and exclaimed, “Bully!” Even 

among the people in far off New Zealand, Roosevelt had made his mark, 

to the great surprise and amusement of Sperry and his staff. 

On August 15, the fleet sailed for Sydney, Australia, where it 

arrived five days later. The fleet was greeted by half a million people 

who had stayed up all night so as not to miss the ships’ arrival. For the 

next eight days, there was a nonstop celebration in honor of the 

Navy visitors. 

“One of the great sports is to get a canoe made of a tree trunk hollowed out with an 

outrigger lashed to it and go surfriding. . . . The game is to get five or six in a canoe 

and paddle out about a mile. There you wait until you see a wave you like, then 

everyone paddles as hard as they can to get a start. If things are properly timed a big 

wave catches the canoe and curved on the shore side and shoots it along the front 

of it. Sometimes you can go half a mile and you go like the devil.” Lt. Edward S. 

Willing, USMC, in USS Illinois, to his father, July 20, 1908 (Willing, 26).

Naval Historical Center, Photographic Collection.
The members of the U.S. Navy Rifle Team, which won the Auckland Cup at Auckland, 

New Zealand, during the visit there of the Great White Fleet, August 1908. All were 

U.S. Naval Academy graduates. Naval Historical Center, Photographic Collection. 

59
60

THE GREAT WHITE FLEET

Maori women dancing for Rear Admiral Sperry and officers of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet at 

Rotorua, New Zealand, August 1908. Naval Historical Center, Photographic Collection. 
61

NARRATIVE

An artist’s impression of the entrance of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet into Sydney Harbor, Australia, 

in The Sydney Mail, August 19, 1908. Naval Historical Center, Photographic Collection. 
62

THE GREAT WHITE FLEET

Marines parade in downtown Melbourne during the visit of the Great White Fleet to Australia, 

September 3, 1908. Naval Historical Center, Photographic Collection. 
Bluejackets from the 

Great White Fleet 

parade through the 

streets of Sydney. 

William Stewart 

Collection.

Hand-colored postcard photograph of the Great White Fleet entering 

Sydney Harbor. Naval Historical Center, Photographic Collection.

Battleships of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet in Sydney Harbor, 

August 1908. In the foreground are the 6-inch broadside 

guns of U.S. Battleship Wisconsin. Naval Historical Center, 

Photographic Collection. 

63
64

THE GREAT WHITE FLEET

Souvenir, printed on silk, of the fleet’s visit to Sydney, with advice on “how to view the 

arrival of the American fleet.” Naval Historical Center, Photographic Collection. 
65

NARRATIVE

Invitation from the government of New South Wales to the officers of U.S. Battleship Wisconsin to 

attend a state banquet at the town hall of Sydney, in honor of the fleet’s visit there, August 21, 1908.

Naval Historical Center, Photographic Collection.
66

THE GREAT WHITE FLEET

With all this celebrating, some 

of the crewmen were beginning to 

feel the wear and tear. One Sailor 

was found asleep on a bench in one 

of Sydney’s parks. Not wishing to be 

disturbed, he posted a sign above his 

head that read:

“Yes, I am delighted with the 

Australian people.

“Yes, I think your park is the finest in the world.

“I am very tired and would like to go to sleep.”

Being truly hospitable, Sydney let him sleep.

Melbourne also rolled out the red carpet for the fleet. Nothing was 

too good for the American Sailors, who were given the key to the city. 

Melbourne’s hospitality made such an impression that many Sailors 

were reluctant to leave when the ships got underway for Albany in 

Western Australia. The late arrival of contracted colliers delayed the 

fleet’s departure from Albany for the Philippines.

The fleet arrived at Manila on October 2 and, after a brief sojourn, 

turned north for Japan on October 10. While en route in the South 

China Sea, the fleet ran into one of the worst typhoons in forty years. 

According to one Sailor, “The typhoon happened right off Formosa. 

All you could see, when a ship was in trough, was the trunk of its mast 

above the wave tops. That was all you could see of an entire battleship. 

Then our turn would come to go into a trough, and we couldn’t see anything for a while.”

In riding out the storm, there was a moment of high drama when, 

as the Sailor recalled, “Something happened that you’re just not going to 

During the world cruise, many commercial enterprises linked their brand names 

to the Great White Fleet. Naval Historical Center, Roy W. Davis Collection.

“Our menagerie on board is growing every day, and 

I am afraid to think what it will be when the fleet 

gets back. The bear and the kangaroo don’t agree 

very well, that is, the bear don’t like the kangaroo 

very much and the other day Teddy swatted the 

Australian and pretty nearly did for him.” Lt. 

Edward S. Willing, USMC, in USS Illinois, to his 

mother, September 7, 1908 (Willing, 30). 

Sailor with a wallaby presented to the American 

fleet by the citizens of Sydney, Australia.

William Stewart Collection.
On this Australian postcard the merging of the identities 

of Uncle Sam and John Bull (personifications of the 

United States and the United Kingdom), as well as of 

the American eagle, the British lion, and the Australian 

kangaroo, and the motto “We’re all one” suggest the unity 

of national interests of the United States and Australia.

Naval Historical Center, Roy W. Davis Collection.

Postcard of the visit to Melbourne 

in August–September 1908.

Naval Historical Center, 

Roy W. Davis Collection.

67
68

THE GREAT WHITE FLEET

A view of U.S. Battleship Kansas in heavy seas 

on the way to Japan in October 1908.

Naval Historical Center, Roy W. Davis Collection.

“We ran into what is called out here ‘A Typhoon’ 

which lasted two days and three or four knots was 

as fast as we could go. If it had lasted much longer 

I think the most of us would have been down 

and out for it was so rough that you couldn’t 

sleep, sit down, lay down or stand up.” Electrician 

Leslie Haines, in USS Connecticut, to his parents, 

October 19, 1908 (Haines, 64). U.S. Battleship 

New Jersey in a typhoon in the China Sea.

Naval Historical Center, Photographic Collection. 
69

NARRATIVE

believe. One of the sailors on a ship in our squadron was picked up and washed overboard by a 

big wave. Then that same wave carried him over 

to another ship in another squadron and it threw 

him up on the deck.” 

The fleet came through the typhoon unscathed, and as it approached Tokyo Bay and 

Yokohama, Sperry circulated a directive concerning liberty in Japan. In it he stated that, to 

ensure against diplomatically damaging incidents, 

“only first-class men, whose records showed no 

evidence of previous indulgence in intoxicating 

liquor,” would be allowed ashore. In the classification system established for granting liberty, 

first-class libertymen were those who had been 

on board for at least six months without any infringement of Navy regulations. By limiting liberty to first-class libertymen, Sperry ensured that all potential troublemakers remained safely 

on board. In reference to a planned reception for the crew, the directive 

went on to state that “the men will be made to understand that this, 

though an entertainment, is a matter of military duty,” and all Sailors 

should conduct themselves accordingly. 

On October 17, the day before the fleet’s arrival, the Yokohama 

newspaper Boyaki Shimpo came out with what it called a “Fleet Banzai 

Number” and showered printed praise upon the fleet. When the U.S. 

ships arrived the next day, sixteen Japanese battleships and three cruisers accompanied them into the bay, while on shore school children sang 

“Hail Columbia” and the “Star-Spangled Banner.” 

While en route to Japan, the fleet came through two powerful typhoons undamaged. 

Unfortunately two of several Sailors who were washed overboard could not be rescued and 

drowned. Naval Historical Center, Roy W. Davis Collection.
The landing of the first liberty party, Yokohama, Japan, 

October 1908. Naval Historical Center, Photographic 

Collection; Stephen and Michiko Levine Collection.

70
71

NARRATIVE

Bluejackets from the American fleet en route to a garden party in Yokohama. 

Stephen and Michiko Levine Collection.

“There are three long docks built out from the bund. . . . They are made of poles 

and planks but are covered with evergreens and are not only by far the best landings 

we have had anywhere but are attractive looking.” Lt. Edward S. Willing, USMC, in 

USS Illinois, to his mother, October 22, 1908 (Willing, 36). Rear Admiral Sperry 

and others on a decorated pier at Yokohama. 

Naval Historical Center, Photographic Collection. 

Postcard issued in Japan in honor of the visit 

of the Great White Fleet, showing the fleet in 

Tokyo Bay, with Mount Fuji in the background. 

Stephen and Michiko Levine Collection.
72

THE GREAT WHITE FLEET

Officers of the Japanese Navy’s armored cruiser Nisshin with officers of U.S. Battleship Missouri on the 

latter ship’s deck, at Yokohama, Japan, October 24, 1908. Naval Historical Center, Photographic Collection. 
Front and back covers of an Imperial Japanese Government Railways ticket specially 

printed for distribution to Sailors of the Great White Fleet. Ticket numbers 

correspond to the day of the visit for which the pass was good. Naval Historical 

Center, Roy W. Davis Collection; Stephen and Michiko Levine Collection.

Image (above) of the inside of an Imperial 

Japanese Government Railways ticket. Naval 

Historical Center, Roy W. Davis Collection.

73
74

THE GREAT WHITE FLEET

Cover of an invitation to a reception in the Japan Tea Hall at Yokohama 

Railway Depot. Naval Historical Center, Roy W. Davis Collection.

This postcard welcoming the American fleet to Japan shows 

a young child wearing a hat imprinted with the name of 

the Japanese battleship Kashima. Stephen and Michiko 

Levine Collection.
75

NARRATIVE

Souvenirs issued in Japan in honor of the visit of 

the Great White Fleet, October 1908.

Stephen and Michiko Levine Collection.
Japanese visitors on board U.S. Battleship 

Kansas during the fleet’s visit to Japan.

Stephen and Michiko Levine Collection.

American bluejackets and Japanese visitors on board one of the ships of the Great White 

Fleet during the visit to Japan. Stephen and Michiko Levine Collection.

This postcard, mailed from Tokyo, includes the message “These ladies are 

the wives and daughters of the captains that just left our country. The ladies 

are dressed in kimono and obis around their waists.” Stephen and Michiko 

Levine Collection.

76
77

NARRATIVE

Japanese hospitality was indeed overflowing. The four flag officers 

of the fleet were accommodated at the Emperor’s Palace, while the 

ships’ captains occupied suites at Tokyo’s elegant Imperial Hotel. Junior 

officers received railroad passes, and selected enlisted men were given 

free trolley car privileges. For the entire week that the fleet was in Japan, 

there was a constant round of celebrations, balls, and parties. Admiral 

Togo of the Imperial Japanese Navy gave a garden party; Premier 

Katsura hosted a formal ball; and fifty thousand Tokyo residents 

honored the fleet with a torchlight parade. 

During a champagne party in the Japanese battleship Mikasa, 

Sperry suffered an indignity, albeit an unintended one, from his 

Japanese Navy hosts. It occurred when a group of exuberant Imperial 

Navy cadets suddenly picked up Sperry and hurled him into the air 

three times, shouting “Banzai!” with each liftoff. In Japanese naval 

circles, the Banzai cheer and tossing were considered tributes. This 

was explained to a ruffled Sperry after he was placed back on the deck, 

A Yokohama silk shop advertising a discount for 

customers from the Great White Fleet.

Stephen and Michiko Levine Collection.

“Another episode of the visit was the distribution of some fifteen thousand sunshades 

by the Hochi Shimbun. Needless to say that the decorative design on each of these 

consisted of the American and Japanese national flags. Many of the sailors carried the 

sunshades with them on landing, and since to all inquiries they pointed to the legend 

Hochi Shimbun, the guides, previously instructed, led them to the great Mitsu-Koshi 

dry goods store, where they were served to their advantage and to the store’s profit. It 

was a subtle form of advertisement.” Japan Weekly Mail, October 24, 1908.

Stephen and Michiko Levine Collection.
78

THE GREAT WHITE FLEET

gasping and trying to straighten out his twisted sash, 

dislocated sword, and wrinkled uniform. Sperry 

accepted the tribute as graciously as possible under 

the circumstances. 

One of the first diplomatic gestures came about, 

not as part of an elaborately planned ceremony, 

but spontaneously during a crisis. On the night of 

October 22, an arch honoring the fleet caught fire, 

and the flames began creeping up one side of the arch 

toward a Japanese flag anchored on a pole at the top. 

Three U.S. Sailors and a Marine raced toward the 

scene. The Marine, reaching the blazing arch first, 

climbed the clear side of the arch and retrieved the 

Japanese flag before the flames could engulf it. The 

Japanese crowd that had gathered went wild and 

hoisted the Marine onto their shoulders and paraded 

about the streets. The Great White Fleet had scored 

a small but important diplomatic coup.

The fleet’s Japan visit had the desired result: it generated goodwill 

between both countries and eased tensions that might otherwise have 

led to open conflict. Much of the credit goes to Sperry, whose skill as a 

diplomat and professionalism as an officer were crucial.

After their stop in Japan, half the fleet steamed back to Manila for 

a month’s gunnery practice, and the other eight ships set course for the 

Formosa (Taiwan) Strait and the Chinese port of Amoy (Xiamen). The 

Peking government was prepared to welcome sixteen battleships, but when 

only eight arrived, the local officials were disappointed and embarrassed. 

This unintended slight was due to operational requirements of the fleet. Souvenir bowl advertising Kabuto Beer.

William Stewart Collection.

“I have just purchased a Japanese tea set for Mama with forty two pieces in it. . . . I am as ignorant concerning 

china ware, as to quality and worth, as the bull was awkward in the china store but I really don’t think it was a 

gold brick.” Electrician Leslie Haines, in USS Connecticut, to his sister, October 19, 1908 (Haines, 65). “If I was 

to buy all the stuff I have seen that I would like to have had, a thousand dollars would look like a plugged nickel 

and last about as long as a pie at the mess table.” Haines to his parents, October 22, 1908 (Haines, 66). 

Stephen and Michiko Levine Collection.
79

NARRATIVE

The hobby of collecting souvenir 

spoons was in vogue at the time of 

the world cruise. Electrician Leslie 

Haines, for instance, attempted to 

collect a souvenir spoon at every 

port of call during the cruise for 

his sister’s collection (Haines, 

55, 58, 59, 65). Shown here is a 

souvenir spoon issued in honor of 

the Great White Fleet’s visit to 

Japan. Stephen and Michiko Levine 

Collection.

Welcome arch erected in Manila, Philippines, in honor of the fleet’s visit there, October 

1908. Naval Historical Center, Photographic Collection.

A silk banner displaying an image of the Great 

White Fleet in Tokyo Harbor. Stephen and Michiko 

Levine Collection.

A selection of postcards issued in Japan. 

Stephen and Michiko Levine Collection.
Officers of the Great White Fleet at a banquet held in Amoy, November 1, 1908. 

Naval Historical Center, Photographic Collection. 

Silk banner commemorating the fleet’s visit to Amoy. 

Stephen and Michiko Levine Collection.

80

Officers of the Second Squadron and their Chinese hosts at Amoy 

(Xiamen), China, a seaport on two islands in Formosa (Taiwan) Strait, 

November 1, 1908. Naval Historical Center, Photographic Collection. 
81

NARRATIVE

At Amoy, a specially built entertainment center awaited the officers and enlisted men of the fleet. All food and drink was brought 

in from Shanghai, along with rickshaws, mandarin chairs, horses, and 

wagons. It was at Amoy that many of the Sailors were introduced to the 

oriental delicacy of shark fin soup.

Concluding their call on Amoy, the eight ships steamed back to 

Manila to join the rest of the fleet on maneuvers. From there, the entire fleet sailed into the Indian Ocean, making a port call at Colombo, 

Ceylon (Sri Lanka), off the southeastern coast of India. While in 

Ceylon, the officers and crew were swamped with complimentary tea 

from none other than Sir Thomas Lipton, a man whose familiar face 

once adorned boxes of tea bags found in supermarkets throughout the 

United States.

Christmas of 1908 was celebrated by the fleet as it crossed the 

Indian Ocean en route to the Arabian Sea. During the holiday underway, the ships were decorated with palms, colored streamers, coconuts, 

and other fruit. Holiday routine was set throughout the ships, and 

Sailors enjoyed a number of competitions, including potato races, threelegged races, sack races, and bobbing for oranges.

At Suez, Sperry learned that a terrible earthquake and a tidal 

wave had brought death and destruction to Messina and other towns 

along the Strait of Messina on December 28, 1908. He immediately 

dispatched the supply ship Culgoa with foodstuffs to the scene of the 

disaster. Yankton, before following, transferred spare medical supplies 

as well as six surgeons from the battleships. After coaling, Connecticut

and Illinois set a course for Messina at top speed. When they arrived, 

Sailors and Marines provided survivors every possible humanitarian aid.

U.S. Supply Ship Culgoa at Messina, Italy, January 1909.

Naval Historical Center, Photographic Collection. 
THE GREAT WHITE FLEET

82

All told, the earthquake and tidal wave that hit southern Italy killed some two 

hundred thousand people. Seen in this photograph are some of the refugees who 

benefited from American humanitarian assistance at Messina. Naval Historical Center, 

Photographic Collection.

U.S. Sailors and Marines from the Great White Fleet landed at Messina, Sicily, to 

distribute provisions and clothing. They erected temporary shelters for survivors of the 

earthquake and tidal wave that struck the island. William Stewart Collection. 

Sailors and Marines also searched for and located the bodies of the American Consul and 

his wife who had perished in the disaster at Messina. William Stewart Collection.
83

NARRATIVE

It took three days for the fleet to transit 

the Suez Canal, the largest naval force to 

have used the canal since its opening forty 

years earlier. The ships then coaled at Port 

Said, Egypt, and proceeded independently 

and in groups to ports of call throughout the Mediterranean, paying visits to 

Algiers, Tangier, Tripoli, Naples, Marseille, 

Villefranche, Athens, Beirut, Smyrna 

(Izmir), Salonika (Thessaloniki, Greece), 

and Malta. At the completion of these visits, the fleet reassembled at Gibraltar for a 

few days of liberty. Then under cloudless 

skies the fleet got underway for home, the 

ships’ bands playing “Home Sweet Home” 

on this last leg of the voyage.

Having crossed the Atlantic, the 

fleet entered Hampton Roads, Virginia, 

on a rainy February 22, 1909, ending its 

14-month odyssey. The fleet arriving early, Sailors repainted the hulls 

in preparation for the formal reception. Steaming into the Roads, the 

ships (looking majestic in their fresh paint) had their bands belt out 

the rollicking tune “Strike Up the Band,” followed by the slower, more 

poignant strains of “There’s No Place Like Home.”

The enthusiasm of the cheering multitudes waiting on shore to 

greet the fleet was not dampened by the inclement weather. Once 

again from the presidential yacht Mayflower, Roosevelt responded 

to the rendering of the fleet’s 21-gun salute with enthusiastic waves. 

Battleships of the Great White Fleet, having navigated the Suez Canal, circa January 5–6, 1909. 

Naval Historical Center, Photographic Collection. 
Sailors from the Great White 

Fleet consulting the Sphinx, 

January 1909.

A bluejacket riding an elephant in Kandy, Ceylon, December 1908.

An American bluejacket, perhaps contemplating the cost of a camel ride in Tangier, 

January 1909. 

All images on this 

page are from the 

William Stewart 

Collection.

84
85

NARRATIVE

“The part of [the Rock of Gibraltar] which we see in the pictures denoting the strength of Gibraltar, in the Prudential sign, faces the land side and is on the North 

side of the Rock. Before we struck Gibraltar everybody was telling everybody else about the Prudential sign that one would see on reaching Gibraltar. The Chaplain 

cut the sign out of a magazine and pasted it out the side of his binoculars, which one holds away from him in looking through the glass. Then he went around the 

decks as soon as we sighted the Rock, giving everybody a look through the glass, and he deceived a good many of those who really believed that the sign was actually 

painted on the Rock.” Electrician Frank Lesher, in USS Virginia, to his father, February 3, 1909 (Lesher Letters). 

Naval Historical Center, Roy W. Davis Collection.
86

THE GREAT WHITE FLEET

President Theodore Roosevelt tips his hat in salute as he boards the battleship Louisiana on its return to Hampton 

Roads after the world cruise of the Great White Fleet. Naval Historical Center, Photographic Collection.
87

NARRATIVE

Roosevelt, with only two weeks left in the White House before turning 

over the reins of government to his successor, William Howard Taft, 

was prompted by the return of the fleet and the success of its mission 

to declare later that this cruise was “the most important service that I 

rendered for peace.”

A Great White Fleet Sailor remembered the homecoming. “We hit 

Hampton Roads on Washington’s Birthday and it was raining. But by 

golly, we celebrated with hardtack and sow belly dinner that day. Later, 

all the deckhands had to go to Washington and parade in the snow for 

[President-elect] Howard Taft.” 

The cruise of the Great White Fleet had many substantial results, 

for national self-esteem, for diplomacy, and for Navy technology. The 

cruise proved that the United States was a world power, capable of 

projecting its influence.

Diplomatically, our relations with the countries visited were either 

improved or established in a positive way. The most important improvement of relations was with Japan, a diplomatic priority from the 

beginning. The visit by the fleet provided the main thrust behind the 

Root-Takahira Agreement that went into effect shortly after the fleet’s 

return. According to this treaty, the United States and Japan agreed to 

maintain the status quo in the Pacific and to respect each other’s possessions there. Also, both nations consented to respect the “Open Door” policy in China and the independence and territorial integrity of that country.

Operationally, the cruise was a resounding success. Initially, the detractors of the enterprise did not believe the ships would be capable of 

making the round-the-world transit without frequently breaking down. 

Yet there were no serious repairs or maintenance problems; there were 

no breakdowns or serious accidents.

President Theodore Roosevelt, the newly appointed Secretary of the Navy Charles J. Bonaparte, 

and Rear Admiral Charles S. Sperry, at Hampton Roads on the return of the fleet from its world 

cruise, February 22, 1909. Naval Historical Center, Photographic Collection. 
88

THE GREAT WHITE FLEET

The voyage confirmed certain technical defects in ship design that 

reformers within the Navy had campaigned unsuccessfully to correct. It demonstrated that ships’ armor belts were placed too low, and 

in normal seas were often below the waterline. This was a deficiency 

that rendered the battleships’ defense against enemy fire ineffective. 

Shipboard habitability also was inadequate, and ventilation had to be 

improved; hull casemate shutters could not keep the water out in rough 

seas; rapid-fire guns placed close to the waterline could not be used effectively since spray and water entering the gun ports were distracting 

to the crews; and the lofty upper works of the ships were found to be 

comfortable for peacetime conditions but would be “shell exploders” 

during wartime.

It became clear, too, that shipboard weights had to be reduced in 

order to bring the ships closer to their design drafts. To achieve this, the 

old-style military masts and “fighting tops” were replaced by new cage 

masts with fire-control tops; top-heavy bridges and charthouses were removed and replaced by open bridges; light-weight torpedo-defense guns 

gave way to more powerful pieces; and new fire-control gear was fitted 

out on the ships.

Sperry also recommended that the ships of the Navy be permanently 

painted in battle color, a shade of gray known as battleship gray. Changing 

color from peacetime white to battle gray at the height of diplomatic tensions with a foreign nation could, in itself, be an escalatory move. It made 

much sense to have the ships always painted in battle colors.

For the Sailors and Marines who participated in this historic, oncein-a-lifetime adventure, the deployment reinforced their pride in service 

and country. They had been the ambassadors of goodwill and the vehicles through which others perceived and judged America as well as the 

Navy. The results were gratifying. But even more concretely, the Sailors 

and Marines saw their participation and the role of the Great White 

Fleet as a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy. As one Sailor put it, “We 

just wanted to let the world know we were prepared for anything they 

wanted to kick up. We wanted to show the world what we could do.” 

“We have now on board our 

homeward bound coal, and all 

hands are not sorry. Well, we will 

soon be in Hampton Roads, and 

seeing each other personally, Love 

to Mother.” Electrician Frank 

Lesher, in USS Virginia, to his 

father, February 3, 1909 

(Lesher Letters).

Note the Sailor’s cap ribbon 

mimicking the long pennant 

streaming from the ship’s 

foremast. Stephen and Michiko 

Levine Collection.
89

“At last the cruise is at an end and a great trip 

it has been too. One that I consider myself 

lucky in getting to take part in, and one that 

I never expect to be able to enjoy again.” 

Electrician Leslie Haines, in USS Connecticut,

to his parents, February 23, 1909 (Haines, 74). 

When Jacky Comes Marching Home, by Henry 

Reuterdahl, Collier’s magazine cover, June 20, 

1909. William Stewart Collection.
“Great White Fleet,” oil painting by John Roach.

Naval Historical Center, Navy Art Collection.
NARRATIVE

Assessment

by James R. Reckner

In the early months of 1907, American relations with Japan reached a critical 

point. The quickening flow of Japanese immigrant labor had raised the concern 

of American workingmen on the West Coast and triggered reactive measures in 

California. Underlying the obvious fear of labor competition was apprehension 

about Japanese military prowess. Japan, recently victorious in land and sea battles 

against Russia, was viewed by many as a distinct military threat to the virtually 

defenseless West Coast and Hawaii. The possibility, however remote, that the 

Japanese government might take military action in response to California’s 

regulations rapidly transformed the immigration concern into a war scare. 

Historians of later generations examining this period of Japanese-American 

relations have concluded that the situation in 1907 was less serious than originally 

thought. Despite this historical hindsight, it is difficult to deny that Americans 

perceived a crisis at the time.

91
92

THE GREAT WHITE FLEET

While actively seeking to resolve the concern over and reaction 

to Japanese immigration, President Theodore Roosevelt ordered the 

implementation, for exercise purposes, of a number of measures recommended by the Joint Board of the Army and Navy. These included the 

deployment of the entire battleship fleet—the U.S. Atlantic Fleet—to 

the Pacific. The voyage that followed, the world cruise of the Great 

White Fleet, has taken its place in American history as the single most 

significant naval event of the Roosevelt administration. But this assessment falsely suggests that the Far East was a preeminent naval concern. 

In reality, the Navy’s preoccupation with the defense implications of the 

war scare of 1907 was quite short-lived, a brief distraction from the traditional concentration on events in the Caribbean and Europe. 

Indeed, an appreciation of this Caribbean-Atlantic orientation 

is necessary to understanding the full significance to the Navy of the 

American rapprochement with Japan, formalized by the Root-Takahira 

Agreement of November 1908. American leaders, naval officers in particular, were convinced that Germany represented the greatest threat 

to peace. The need to resolve difficulties with Japan, important for 

further development of bilateral relations, assumed even greater global 

significance because rapprochement would permit continued concentration of the battleship fleet in the Atlantic, an advantage that amply 

compensated for America’s weak position in the Pacific. American distrust of German motives, kindled in Samoa in the 1880s and nurtured 

at Manila Bay in 1898, had been sustained by the Venezuela blockade 

of 1903 and Germany’s threatening position regarding Morocco in 

1905–6. Most American naval deployments from 1903 to 1913 were 

in the direction of Europe, which reflected a continuing Anglo-French 

geopolitical interest.

Model of U.S. Battleship Maine. Curator of Navy Ship Models.
93

A selection of postcards issued in Japan in honor of the visit 

of the American fleet in October 1908. Stephen and Michiko 

Levine Collection.
94

THE GREAT WHITE FLEET

The success of the world tour suggested that the United States 

could play its part in world affairs well. Few of Theodore Roosevelt’s 

contemporaries in America would have argued with his claim that the 

United States had “no choice” as to whether it would “play a great part 

in the world.” The only decision open to Americans, Roosevelt contended, was whether they would play that part “well or ill.”13

Americans were unabashed in waxing poetic over the glory of the 

fleet and its cruise. Some Europeans decried such demonstrative pride, 

but whether they were critical or supportive of the cruise, the shifting 

of American naval power to the Pacific forced them to reappraise the 

balance of power in that ocean. 

Unprecedented in many respects, including distance steamed and 

number of ships participating, the cruise commanded the world’s attention. For the people of host ports, it provided a unique entertainment 

opportunity, the significance of which they were quick to grasp. Indeed, 

the arrival of sixteen gleaming white- and buff-colored first-class battleships was the event of a lifetime. One million people lined the shores off 

the Golden Gate to welcome the fleet to San Francisco; half a million 

gathered in Sydney; hundreds of thousands turned out in other ports.

A remarkable air of innocence surrounds contemporary attitudes 

toward the fleet and its cruise. This is understandable. The world 

would enjoy six more years of naval pageantry and splendor before 

the challenges of unrestricted submarine warfare and ever-mounting 

casualty lists from the trenches in France extinguished a generation’s 

romantic conceptions and preoccupation with things military. But that 

disillusionment lay in the future. In 1908, naval parades were applauded 

without reservation; few fears were expressed about the battleship 

cruise, and people along the route, particularly those in remote places 

never before visited by a great fleet, gladly surrendered themselves to 

the festivities.

The cruise was a highly successful exercise in national public 

awareness. It greatly expanded popular understanding of American foreign relations and defense considerations, particularly in regard to the 

Pacific Basin. In every corner of the nation the tour promoted public 

knowledge of, interest in, and support for the Navy. But this exposure 

generated increased public scrutiny of the Navy Department for most of 

the fourteen months the fleet was away, which brings up an important 

but often neglected theme related to the cruise: the sensational, often 

acrimonious, debates over ship design and naval organization.

Although often cited as proof of the efficiency of the Navy and its 

bureau system, the cruise never actually tested materiel and organizational deficiencies against which Navy reformers campaigned. Battleship 

design errors such as incorrectly placed armor belts and unsafe ammunition hoists, as well as the fragmented authority of the bureau system 

that perpetuated these errors, were left unexamined. Primarily an exercise in extended peacetime cruising and naval diplomacy, the battleship 

cruise tended to mask the Navy’s defects and thus, at least superficially, 

to diminish the strength of the reform argument.

What the American public saw was the successful completion, with 

few apparent difficulties, of the longest fleet cruise ever undertaken by 

any navy. That ships of the fleet might not have been properly designed 

as a result of faulty organization within the Navy Department, that the 

Navy lacked the essential logistic support of a healthy merchant marine, and that senior officers of the fleet were too old and, despite their 

advanced age, too inexperienced in high command—these were fine 
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ASSESSMENT

points often ignored in favor of the pomp and ceremony, the orations 

and ovations, that attended the battleships as they proceeded on their 

great voyage.

The world cruise of the Atlantic battleship fleet has traditionally 

been viewed as an outstanding example of Theodore Roosevelt’s active 

foreign policy, a classic illustration of the “Big Stick” policy. This is a 

misconception, albeit one encouraged by Roosevelt himself. Rather than 

a textbook example of Roosevelt using the power of the U.S. Navy to 

awe Japan, official records of the deployment reveal a prudent President 

attempting to get a good measure of the abilities of his battleship fleet 

before the need to use it arose.

Although diplomacy naturally takes precedence over technical 

considerations in the interpretation of peacetime developments between nations, the wholesale application of this priority to the battleship cruise has resulted in a distorted appreciation of its significance. 

Often forgotten is the fact that battleships of the period were far less 

reliable mechanically than modern warships. Planning a cruise posed 

important questions about technical capabilities that could be resolved 

only through experience. In what material condition would the fleet 

be at the end of a voyage to the Pacific? Would it be ready to fight? 

How would inadequate and virtually untested Pacific coast facilities 

respond to fleet requirements? And would a lengthy cruise help or 

hinder training? 

The need to test the fleet was imperative. This was the all-important consideration behind the decision to conduct a cruise. The tour was 

undertaken primarily as an exercise of naval and military plans to be 

carried out in the event of war with Japan. But when the fleet arrived American bluejackets in Tokyo, Japan. Stephen and Michiko Levine Collection.
96

THE GREAT WHITE FLEET

at Magdalena Bay, its ability to endure a lengthy voyage and arrive at its 

destination prepared to fight had been proven; Roosevelt had measured 

the strengths and limitations of his foreign policy. From this point on, 

he was prepared to use the fleet in pursuit of foreign policy goals.

Fortunately, by this time Roosevelt understood the situation in 

Japan, where growing domestic dissatisfaction over the financial burden imposed by overly ambitious postwar military and naval expansion programs was threatening the position of the Saionji Cabinet. 

American diplomats had provided sound analyses of the Japanese 

government’s financial situation, and from them it could easily be 

concluded that that country was neither prepared nor preparing for 

a conflict with the United States in the near future. Indeed, Japan’s 

pressing need for retrenchment dictated a policy of rapprochement. 

Therefore Roosevelt’s acceptance of Japan’s invitation, while it may 

have appeared to be a grand flourish of a Big Stick policy, was a move 

that involved little actual risk.

The threatening and indiscreet behavior of Germany’s kaiser in 

1908 and continuing German naval expansion were significant factors leading to American rapprochement with Japan. Roosevelt’s 

growing conviction that Wilhelm might plunge Europe into war gave 

added emphasis to the need for an arrangement permitting continued 

concentration of the American battleship fleet in the Atlantic.14 By 

November 1909, the Navy General Board had concluded that, as a result of accelerated dreadnought construction programs, Germany had 

displaced the United States as the world’s second naval power. And 

although undecided as to whether Germany or Japan was the most 

probable enemy, the board was unanimous in labeling the former “the 

most formidable antagonist.”15

While Americans following the cruise once again fixed their attention on Germany, Australians and New Zealanders chose to highlight 

the apparent similarity of American and regional concerns over defense 

in the Pacific. The main regional fear remained the presumed expansionist intentions of Japan.16 The presence of the American battleship 

fleet in the Pacific, however temporary, led regional powers to conclude 

that American naval strength would provide some of the protection no 

longer readily available from the British fleet. Debate over Australian 

defense, heightened by the fleet visit, also strengthened the desire for an 

Australian navy that would “more or less inevitably” be useful for protecting Australia from Japanese hostile intentions.17

After the visits to Australia and New Zealand, those nations settled 

back into their more familiar and comfortable relationship with Great 

Britain.18 Their defense concerns, expressed as a result of the American 

war scare and the fleet visits, eventually translated into a promise that 

the mother country would establish an imperial squadron in the Pacific 

with HMS New Zealand, the battle cruiser New Zealand donated to 

imperial defense in 1909, as flagship.

An intangible aspect of the cruise, difficult to assess, is the influence of personal contact—the importance of impressions made by the 

fleet as it visited various ports. State Department records show that 

American diplomats were uniformly delighted with the port visits.

The New York Times concluded that the “high class of the enlisted 

personnel” was a factor in “advertising the formidability of the fleet 

abroad.”19 But more important, as Outlook magazine suggested, 

personal contacts established by the men did “more than years of civil 

diplomacy . . . to cement international friendships with this country.” 

This was not just the friendship of comrades in arms because fleet 
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ASSESSMENT

personnel were “representative American citizens” and 

treated as such by citizens of the cities they visited.20

Their success may be judged by Japanese acclaim. 

In an article entitled “Banzai to the American Fleet,” 

Tokyo’s Asahi Shimbun reported that the Japanese 

people felt special friendship for the open-hearted, 

kind Americans. Their “irreproachable conduct” 

during the fleet visit had “considerably enhanced” 

their reputation.21 That Japan should also derive 

some benefit from the visit was suggested in the 

newspaper Jiji Shimpo, which noted that the men of 

the returned battleship fleet appreciated better than 

most Americans the “goodwill of the Japanese people 

toward America.”22

Citizens both of the countries visited and of 

America recognized the educational value of the cruise. 

The American public avidly followed the fleet’s progress, 

and in newspapers and magazines tens of millions read detailed reports about the nations being visited. New Zealanders appropriately referred to the phenomenon as the advertising of New Zealand. For 

a nation like the United States, long accustomed to looking inward, long 

preoccupied with developing the vast resources and capabilities within 

its borders, the world cruise opened new vistas. No earlier episode in 

American history had so thoroughly stirred and sustained popular interest in international events or so convincingly identified the United States 

as a major actor on the world stage.

The cruise occurred at a time of unprecedented naval expansion throughout the world. Suggestions that it provided the impetus 

or quickened the pace of this expansion imply a level of influence on 

global events not achieved until later decades. During the period examined here one primary consideration drove the naval arms race: 

the Anglo-German naval confrontation in the North Sea. Of secondary considerations the world cruise was but one, and certainly not 

the most significant. Regional antagonisms in South America and the 

Mediterranean generated naval construction programs that predated 

and were entirely unrelated to the American cruise. Japan’s naval program, a five-year plan incorporated in the 1906 budget, also predated 

it. Similarly, Australia’s desire to develop an independent navy had first 

U.S. Battleship Connecticut leads the Atlantic Fleet out of Hampton Roads, Virginia, at the start of the Great White 

Fleet’s cruise around the world, December 1907. Naval Historical Center, Photographic Collection.
98

THE GREAT WHITE FLEET

been officially mooted in 1902. All of these programs, it seems certain, 

would have gone ahead with or without the cruise.

Nevertheless, the cruise did add further popular appeal to battleships and navies in general. Certainly the arrival of sixteen first-class 

battleships in a foreign port—a display Rear Admiral Sperry called 

“our greatest show on earth”—made a strong impression on the local 

populace and may well have given naval expansion a better name than 

it already enjoyed.23 But added popularity contributed to the naval arms 

race only where the desire for expansion—spurred by technical developments, regional antagonisms, and other factors—already existed. 

Although the cruise exerted little long-term influence on international relations and was but a minor factor in the naval arms race, its 

effect on the American Navy itself was great. Enforced absence from 

navy yards had thrown full responsibility for maintenance and repair on 

ships’ crews. As the cruise progressed they became more efficient and 

the fleet experienced fewer breakdowns. Confidence and a marked increase in mechanical reliability were the inevitable results.

Rigorous fuel economy measures were initiated after the desperate shortage en route to Rio de Janeiro. Rear Admiral Sperry was immensely proud of the fleet’s achievement in this respect. “Efficiency 

has increased 25 per cent by economy of coal consumption,” he told the 

Confederate Club in Richmond one day after the fleet returned, “due to 

hard work and faithful men below decks.”24 The steaming competition 

had boosted the military value of the battleships, which gained more 

efficient engineering crews and increased steaming radii.25

The prolonged period of formation steaming with daily tactical 

drills added immensely to the skill of commanding and watch-keeping 

officers. When the fleet left Rio de Janeiro, Sperry was reporting confidently on officers’ station-keeping abilities.26 This reaffirmed the oftrepeated adage that a Sailor belongs on a ship and the ship belongs at 

sea. As Harry Yarnell wrote, “It is only on the bridge of the ship in fleet 

that the requisite skill and confidence necessary to perform evolutions 

successfully can be obtained.”27

The gunnery practice, daily range-finding exercises, annual record 

target practice at Magdalena Bay, and annual battle exercises at Manila 

Bay paid off as well. “We made great improvement in the accuracy of 

our gun-fire,” Rear Admiral Sperry told an appreciative audience at 

the Lambs Club in New York. “When we left San Francisco we put 

23 per cent of our shots through a target one-third the size of a battleship. When we reached home we could make 50 per cent of hits.”28 

U.S. Battleship Minnesota in a storm while steaming from the Philippines to 

Yokohama, Japan, in October 1908. Naval Historical Center, Photographic Collection. 
99

ASSESSMENT

The highest-scoring ships of the fleet, Vermont and Illinois, had achieved 

thirteen hits out of sixteen shots with their main battery guns, attaining 

an impressive battle practice grade of 81.26 percent.29 This improvement 

made a considerable difference—doubling gunnery efficiency doubled 

a nation’s naval power at no additional cost—and it was an important 

consideration in 1909, when many countries’ naval appropriations were 

placing heavy burdens on their taxpayers.30

The cruise provided a rare opportunity for the bureaus of the Navy 

Department to estimate the fleet’s coal and provisions requirements; to 

call for bids and let contracts for those supplies; and to arrange for their 

transportation to the locations—at great distances from home ports—

where they would be required. The failure of the Bureau of Equipment 

to allow sufficient lead time for coal deliveries in East Asia and the 

Pacific Rim was the one major logistic-support problem during the 

cruise. Rear Admiral Sperry, noting that foreign colliers failed to deliver 

twenty-five thousand tons of coal while the fleet was in East Asia and 

the Pacific Rim, wrote, “If we cannot have a suitable commercial marine 

of our own, then the government should own sufficient colliers.”31

The weakness implied in American reliance on foreign-flag colliers 

was one of the most important technical lessons of the cruise. The strategic implications were inescapable. Had war broken out while the fleet 

was in distant waters, it would have been immobilized by lack of logistic 

support. “Undoubtedly,” Scientific American concluded, “the greatest 

need of the Navy to-day is a fleet of large and fairly fast colliers, built 

expressly for naval purposes.”32 This glaring deficiency was partially addressed in the 1909 naval program, which authorized construction of 

five naval colliers in addition to the two then under construction. These 

seven units constituted the entire modern collier force before World 

War I. The problem of fuel support was not effectively solved until liquid fuels replaced coal as the fleet’s main source of energy.

Noteworthy improvements in engineering reliability and fuel conservation, with the concomitant increase in steaming radius and the 

fleet’s now proven ability to maintain itself in a high state of combat 

readiness for an extended cruise, led to a strategic reassessment by the 

Navy Department. Before the battleship cruise, it was assumed that the 

fleet would need to call at the Philippine base for repairs and maintenance before meeting the Japanese fleet in battle. The cruise had demonstrated that the battleship fleet could steam to the Far East and arrive 

there combat ready. Based on this experience and data collected during 

the cruise, naval planners cut their estimates of time required to mount 

naval operations against Japan from 120 days to 90 days. Furthermore, 

the Navy General Board felt less dependent on a base in the Far East—a 

change of attitude that conveniently supported the decision to develop 

America’s main Pacific naval base at Pearl Harbor.33

“Nothing is more conducive to good administration and efficiency 

in any branch of public service,” Harry Yarnell wrote, “than a widespread knowledge of its intimate details, and consequent criticism by the 

press.”34 The great battleship-design debates that attended the progress 

of the fleet undoubtedly spread knowledge of details about naval administration. But interpretation of the significance of those details remained 

sharply divided along partisan lines. The Navy Department lost a lot of 

credibility when its indignant denials of all criticism, regardless of merit, 

came under sustained public examination. Concerning one initial significant complaint, that American battleships were overdraft, with the 

tops of their armor belts often submerged when at full load, Admiral of 
100

THE GREAT WHITE FLEET

the Navy George Dewey and Rear Admirals Caspar Goodrich, Charles 

Sperry, Seaton Schroeder, and Richard Wainwright—the latter three 

senior officers of the battleship fleet when it was returning to the United 

States—had officially expressed their concurrence.

As the fleet conducted its return voyage from Manila, Rear Admiral 

Sperry completed a detailed list in order of priority of alterations and 

repairs necessary to “maintain cruising and battle efficiency.”35 When 

carried out, four of the first five jobs significantly reduced ships’ weights 

and therefore tended to reduce overdraft. Two of the five top-priority 

jobs—removal of all upper bridges fore and aft, and of all lower aft 

bridges and emergency cabins on nonflagships—were performed exclusively for weight reduction, and weight reduction was a secondary 

effect of two other top-priority measures. However belatedly, steps 

were being taken to alleviate the overdraft problem that Rear Admiral 

George Converse, President of the Board on Construction, and Chief 

Constructor Washington L. Capps, Chief of the Bureau of Construction 

and Repair, insisted did not exist.

But paradoxically, the overwhelming success of the cruise tended 

to diminish the importance of battleship-design criticism and of the 

changes that had been wrought. Although debate at home raged, 

American Review of Reviews reported, “It must be acknowledged that 

the fairest and most conclusive test of a naval system is the actual results produced.”36 Even as Rear Admirals Schroeder’s and Wainwright’s 

scathing appraisals of the defects in the ships they commanded were 

on their way to Washington, the London Spectator reported that the 

“prompt arrival” of the American fleet at Auckland “must have convinced all onlookers . . . that the rumors of grave defects . . . were quite 

unfounded.”37 And at the end of the cruise Scientific American disingenuously interpreted the successful completion of the cruise as a “sharp 

rebuke” to critics of the Navy.38

In effect, civilian observers watching the fleet’s virtually incidentfree voyage spanning fourteen months and more than 43,000 miles 

concluded that the ships were sound. This was a valid conclusion. 

The ships had proven they could keep the sea, had proven the reliability of their engineering plants. The quality of their crews had been 

demonstrated. But no critic had suggested the ships were incapable of 

conducting a peacetime cruise. Defendants overlooked the fact that 

the cruise had only tested fleet units as ships, not as battleships. The 

critics—and the fleet’s admirals—held that what needed improvement was battle qualities. Faulty turret design could not be tested by 

100,000 miles of peacetime steaming. That, and improper location 

of belt armor, could only be tested in actual combat. These, perhaps, 

were the considerations behind Secretary of the Navy Truman H. 

Newberry’s remarkably guarded evaluation of the cruise in his annual 

report for 1908: “Whatever may be said in technical criticism of the 

Navy, the American people . . . know . . . at least, that the vessels will 

float; that their officers and men can handle them; and, so far as actual 

tests in time of peace can show, that the ships and the men are fit in 

every particular for any duty.”39

Although the cruise of the American battleship fleet presented a 

colorful international spectacle at a time when the world “was in an extremely belligerent mood,” its impact on global events was minimal.40

It touched on many American foreign relations issues of the day, but 

a tendency then and in subsequent times to attribute diplomatic successes to the cruise generally disregards underlying reasons. The cruise 
101

ASSESSMENT

might be seen more validly as a catalyst for certain developments in 

American foreign relations.

Similarly, the naval arms race of the first decade of the century 

grew not out of the cruise but out of rapid industrialization on the part 

of European continental powers, the appearance of HMS Dreadnought,

and the failure of the Second Hague Conference in 1907. The battleship 

cruise was a manifestation, a result, of that arms race, not one of its major causes.

The significance of the battleship fleet cruise, therefore, must be 

understood in the context of a developing American Navy. It was the 

first effective test of the New Navy’s sea legs, of its ability to respond 

to defense requirements in the Pacific. And the experience it provided 

paved the way for a reappraisal of America’s Pacific defense capabilities. 

Unprecedented publicity encouraged critical examination of battleship 

design and navy organization. Both were found wanting. That examination is an integral, often overlooked, part of the story of the fleet cruise, 

and perhaps equally important, it illuminates the story of the Navy’s 

often painful process of modernization. The fleet that returned from 

the world cruise was a fleet that through long and sustained practice had 

been welded into a single, highly professional unit. The combined effect 

of cruise and debate was to set the American Navy firmly on the road 

toward more rational, efficient, and professional development. 

Adapted from the preface and the fifteenth chapter of James R. Reckner, 

Teddy Roosevelt’s Great White Fleet (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute 

Press, 1988), with the kind permission of the author and the United States 

Naval Institute.

Cartoon by Clifford Berryman, celebrating the completion of the world cruise on George 

Washington’s birthday. Berryman, an editorial cartoonist for the Washington Post, created the 

image of the teddy bear in 1902 in honor of Theodore Roosevelt. Navy Department Library, 

Great White Fleet Scrapbook.
President Theodore Roosevelt speaks to Sailors on board U.S. Battleship Connecticut on 

their return from the historic cruise. Naval Historical Center, Photographic Collection. 
103

Th e F i na l Wor d

PRESIDENT THEODORE ROOSEVELT ON THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE 

GREAT WHITE FLEET

The fleet completed its 14-month, 43,000-mile voyage on February 22, 1909—George 

Washington’s birthday—and President Roosevelt was present at Hampton Roads to welcome 

them home. Speaking from the deck of the fleet flagship Connecticut, the President summarized his, and the nation’s, pride in the fleet’s achievement:

Over a year has passed since you steamed out of this harbor, and over the world’s 

rim, and this morning the hearts of all who saw you thrilled with pride as the hulls 

of the mighty warships lifted above the horizon. . . . [Y]ou have steamed through all 

the great oceans; you have touched the coast of every continent. Ever your general 

course has been westward; and now you come back to the port from which you set 

sail. This is the first battle fleet that has ever circumnavigated the globe. Those who 

perform the feat again can but follow in your footsteps.41
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THE GREAT WHITE FLEET

Illustration Credits

Around the World with the Fleet, 1907–1909. Annapolis, Md.: United States 

Naval Institute, 1929.

Curator of Navy Ship Models, West Bethesda, Md.

Haines, Leslie W. Letters Home to Indiana by Leslie W. Haines of Carmel, 

Indiana, 1906 to 1910, As a Sailor Aboard the Battleship, USS Connecticut, 

during World Tour of the Great White Fleet, revised ed., edited by John M. 

Haines. Benicia, Calif., n.p., 2006.

Lesher, Frank B. Letters published in “The Great White Fleet: A Collection 

of Postcards, Medals, Photographs, and Memorabilia” by William Stewart, 

www.greatwhitefleet.info/, accessed Nov. 27, 2007.

Naval Historical Center, Washington, D.C.

Photographic Collection, Curator Branch

Navy Art Collection

Roy W. Davis Collection, Operational Archives Branch

Navy Department Library, Washington, D.C.

Church-Kingery Collection 

Great White Fleet Scrapbook

ZC Files, USS Maine

Private collection of Dr. Stephen J. and Michiko Levine, River Edge, N.J.

Private collection of William Stewart, Seattle, Wash. 

Willing, Edward S. Letters from the Great White Fleet by Lt. Edward Shippen 

Willing, U.S.M.C., transcribed and edited by Peter Willing. N.p., n.p., 1995.

Endnotes

1. Franklin Matthews, With the Battle Fleet: Cruise of the Sixteen Battleships 

of the United States Atlantic Fleet from Hampton Roads to the Golden Gate, 

December, 1907–May, 1908 (New York: B. W. Huebsch, 1909), 18–21, 

64–85.

2. Diary of John Adams, 7 Mar. 1778, Naval Documents of the American 

Revolution, Michael J. Crawford et al., eds. (Washington, D.C.: Naval 

Historical Center, 2005) 11: 1068.

3. Journal of Midshipman William W. Feltus, 25 Nov. 1812, The Naval 

War of 1812: A Documentary History, William S. Dudley et al., eds. 

(Washington: Naval Historical Center, 1985–) 1: 625–26.

4. Herman Melville, White Jacket: or, The World in a Man-of-War (1850; 

reprint ed., edited by William L. Heflin, Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute 

Press, 1988), 107.

5. Matthews, With the Battle Fleet, 15–16.

6. Samuel H. Barboo Jr., “A Historical Review of the Hygiene of Shipboard 

Food Service in the United States Navy, 1775—1965” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1966), 36–73.

7. Roy W. Davis Collection, Operational Archives, Naval Historical Center, 

Washington, D.C.

8. This and the following four paragraphs are based on Frederick S. Harrod, 

Manning the New Navy: The Development of a Modern Naval Enlisted Force, 

1899–1940 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1978), especially chapter 1 and 

the appendices.

9. Frank Lesher to Isaac Lesher, 7 Jan. 1909, “The Great White Fleet: 

A Collection of Postcards, Medals, Photographs, and Memorabilia,” by 

William Stewart, www.greatwhitefleet.info/, accessed Nov. 20, 2007.
105

ENDNOTES

10. Obituary for Roy Davis, Roy W. Davis Papers.

11. Stewart Collection.

12 This narrative is an adapted and revised version of Journalist Second 

Class (JO2) Mike McKinley’s “The Cruise of the Great White Fleet.” All 

Hands 841 (April 1987): 4–15. 

13. Howard K. Beale, Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of America to World 

Power (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins Press, 1956), 173, citing address at 

Mechanics Pavilion, San Francisco, 13 May 1903.

14. William Reynolds Braisted, “The United States Navy’s Dilemma in the 

Pacific, 1906–1909,” Pacific Historical Review 26 (1957): 242.

15. Melvin Small, “The American Image of Germany, 1906–1914” (Ph.D. 

diss., University of Michigan, 1965), 95–96; William Reynolds Braisted, 

The United States Navy in the Pacific, 1897–1914 (Austin: University of 

Texas Press, 1958), 239.

16. Sperry to Roosevelt, 12 Sep. 1908. Rear Admiral Charles Stillman 

Sperry Correspondence, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

17. “Australian Problems,” Spectator 101 (12 Sep. 1908): 352.

18. Neville Meaney, The Search for Security in the Pacific,1901–14 (Sydney: 

Sydney University Press, 1976), 167.

19. New York Times, 14 Jan. 1909.

20. “The Return of the Fleet,” Outlook (27 Feb. 1909): 425.

21. Asahi Shimbun, 25 Feb. 1909.

22. Jiji Shimpo, 25 Feb. 1909.

23. Sperry to C. S. Sperry Jr., 9 Feb. 1908, Sperry Correspondence.

24. New York Times, 24 Feb. 1909.

25. “The Cruise of the Atlantic Fleet,” undated, unsigned, Admiral Harry 

E. Yarnell Diaries and Papers, 6, Naval Historical Center, Washington, D.C.

26. Sperry to Metcalf, 27 Jan. 1908, Sperry Correspondence.

27. “The Cruise of the Atlantic Fleet,” Yarnell Papers, 8.

28. New York Times, 24 Feb. 1909.

29. Sperry to Porter, 14 Dec. 1908, Sperry Correspondence.

30. “The Cruise of the Atlantic Fleet,” Yarnell Papers, 8.

31. “Cruise of the Atlantic Fleet,” undated, Sperry Correspondence.

32. “Lessons and Results of the Battleship Cruise,” Scientific American 100 

(20 Feb. 1909): 146.

33. Richard D. Challener, Admirals, Generals, and American Foreign Policy, 

1898–1914 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973), 40.

34. “The Cruise of the Atlantic Fleet,” Yarnell Papers, 3.

35. Sperry to Newberry, no. 4165, 4 Jan. 1909, Record Group 24: 

6072/583, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

36. Winthrop L. Marvin, “The Greatest Naval Cruise of Modern Times,” 

American Review of Reviews 37 (April 1908): 462.

37. “The United States Fleet,” Spectator 101 (15 Aug. 1908): 218–19.

38. “Lessons and Results of the Battleship Cruise,” Scientific American, 146.

39. United States Department of the Navy, Annual Report of the Secretary of 

the Navy, 1908 (Washington: GPO, 1908), 7.

40. Charles Edward Jefferson, “The Delusion of Militarism,” Atlantic 

Monthly 103 (1909): 379.

41. New York Times, 23 Feb. 1909.
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Acknowledgments

Thanks are due to the authors who contributed to this work: 

Robert J. Cressman of the Naval Historical Center’s Ships History 

Branch; JO2 Mike McKinley, formerly of All Hands magazine; and 

James R. Reckner, of Texas Tech University. Dr. Reckner also reviewed 

the text and made valuable recommendations to improve accuracy 

and style. The courtesy of Dr. Stephen J. and Michiko Levine of 

River Edge, New Jersey, and William Stewart of Seattle, Washington, 

made it possible to supplement the center’s collections with images of 

photographs, postcards, and artifacts from their private collections.

Rear Admiral Paul E. Tobin Jr., USN (Ret.), the center’s former 

director, and Dr. Edward J. Marolda, the current acting director, gave 

enthusiastic backing to the enterprise from its inception. Center staff, 

including Davis Elliot of the Navy Department Library, Edwin Finney 

and Robert Hanshew of the Photographic Section, J. Allen Knechtmann 

of the Operational Archives, and Gale Munro and Karin Haubold of the 

Navy Art Collection provided access to the collections in their care and 

assisted in various other ways. Sandra Doyle, the center’s senior editor, 

improved the text’s form and content with cheer and efficiency. 

E. Gordon Bowen-Hassell, Charles E. Brodine Jr., Dennis M. Conrad, 

and Christine F. Hughes, the staff of the Early History Branch, 

performed historical research, electronically scanned images, and 

proofread text. The final design of the book is owing to the talents of 

Maureen Nugent of the U.S. Government Printing Office. 

Finally, without the direction and support of the Honorable 

Donald C. Winter, Secretary of the Navy, this book would not have 

been published. Direct assistance was provided by the Deputy Under 

Secretary of the Navy’s office —specifically Jodi Greene, 

LeeAnn Borman, and Kweilen Kimmelman—who ensured this 

publication came to fruition during the 100th anniversary of the sailing 

of the Great White Fleet.

Responsibility for the choice of illustrations, the captions, and the 

final wording of the text is mine.

Michael J. Crawford

Naval Historical Center