NavHist - The Great White Fleet: Top 10 Things You May Not Know About the Historic U.S. Navy Worldwide Cruise

The cruise of the Great White Fleet took the U.S. Navy around the globe in fourteen months on a journey totaling 43,000 miles. They visited twenty unique port calls across six continents. It was a monumental “show of flag” for the burgeoning world power. The fleet showcased the naval and maritime capabilities of its new “Steel Navy” to nations around the world. Here are ten interesting facts about the historic around-the-world cruise. 

1. The Great White Fleet was Actually Two Squadrons

Approximately 14,500 officers and men sailed with the fleet for its around-the-world voyage. The sixteen white ships comprising the fleet were divided into two squadrons, including several smaller escort ships that joined the voyage along the way. In San Francisco, the squadrons were reorganized to include the best and newest ships into the First Squadron. 

2. The Great White Fleet was Excellent PR for the U.S. Navy

From the birth of the Steel Navy in the 1880s to the end of the voyage of the Great White Fleet, the Navy increased the strength of its enlisted force by 523% or 44,500 men. This was a huge opportunity for the Navy to show its new fleet of ships, and most importantly, its new sailors.  

3. The Original Commander Was Replaced Due to Ill Health

RADM Robley D. Evans

When the Fleet departed Hampton Roads on 16 December 1907, RADM Robley Evans, better known as “Fighting Bob,” took command of the voyage. By the time the Great White Fleet reached San Francisco several months later, however, he was relieved of command due to ill health and replaced by RADM Charles S. Sperry. The illness was caused by an ailment to one foot after a terrible wound he received at the Second Battle of Fort Fisher in 1865. 

According to one article in the New York Times, Evans was helped into a San Francisco banquet hall with a wheelchair to say farewell to the officers of his command. He retired from the Navy on 18 August 1908, and died in Washington, DC, on 3 January 1912. 

4. It Sparked Similar Circumnavigational Voyages

There were two similar circumnavigational voyages by naval squadrons in the twentieth century. Between 1923 and 1924, Royal Navy battlecruisers HMS Hood, HMS Repose, and the Special Service Squadron sailed around the world on “The Empire Cruise.” Throughout the voyage, they made stops at ports of call in counties that had fought alongside each other in the First World War. The Squadron made a U.S. stop in San Francisco. The U.S. Navy steamed 30,565 miles around the world without refueling in 1964 during Operation Sea Orbit. The cruise was the showpiece of the Navy’s Task Force One, consisting of nuclear vessels USS Enterprise (CVAN 65), USS Long Beach (CGN 9), and USS Bainbridge (DLGN 25). 

5. The Great White Fleet Answered to a Humanitarian Crisis

This is one of the first times in the U.S. Navy’s history that sailors responded to humanitarian missions abroad. When the Fleet visited Egypt, they dispatched several ships to provide aid to Sicily after a devastating earthquake rocked the tiny island in 1908. The Illinois crew recovered the bodies of the American consul, Arthur S. Cheney, and his wife, from the ruins in Messina. 

6. The Navy Received Several Exotic Animals

Bear cub presented to the ship by the Citizens of Seattle, Washington, when Missouri visited that city in 1908 during the Great White Fleet’s cruise around the World. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph.

Along the way, the Fleet received several animals as gifts from ports they visited, such as a wallaby from Sydney, Australia, a bear cub from Seattle, Washington, and a jaguar from Brazil.  The jaguar actually jumped ship while going through the Straits of Magellan, but successfully swam to shore.  

7. Japan Gave the Fleet a Warm (and Surprising) Welcome 

When the fleet visited arguably its most important stop in Japan, they were surprised to see the city of Yokohama adorned with American flags. They were also surprised to see the welcome reception that many of the sailors had feared throughout the voyage, as Japan had grown from a tiny island to a growing imperial empire by the turn of the century. The Japanese had made flags with a 46th state, incorporating Oklahoma, which had entered the Union in November 1907 just before the cruise began.  Ensigns on the Great White Fleet only had 45 stars. Talk about attention to detail!

8. The Fleet Improved Relations

Overall, the Great White Fleet helped either establish or improve our relations with foreign countries around the globe. The biggest improvement was with Japan. According to former Naval History and Heritage Command historian Michael Crawford, the visit by the fleet provided the main impetus behind the Root-Takahira Agreement, which helped quell any uneasiness about possible warfare and establish a “status quo” in the Pacific. 

9. The Cruise Benefitted the Navy’s Training 

The cruise provided the officers and men of the fleet with thorough at-sea training and brought about improvements in formation, steaming, coal economy, gunnery, and morale. It also stressed the need for overseas bases that could provide better coaling and supply services along with more auxiliary ships. 

10. The Cruise Highlighted the Need for Naval Bases Around the World

Foreign coaling ships or ports were used 90 percent of the time for coaling and resupply. This was the main criticism of the cruise. As Scientific American noted, “We refer to our great shortage of colliers and to the fact that had it not been for the foreign bottoms in which coal was shipped to the fleet at various points of rendezvous, it would have been impossible for this voyage to have been made. . . . [In a wartime setting] with no colliers of our own available to carry the necessary fuel, our sixteen battleships would have been as useless as so many anchored.” 

Naval Station Pearl Harbor was established on the Hawaiian island of Oahu in 1908, the year of the end of the cruise. Despite the dependence on coaling and resupply, there were no major ship breakdowns or accidents during the fourteen-month voyage.  

For more info, visit the NHHC website on the Great White Fleet.

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