US History Michallik: The Great White Fleet

The Adventure of the Great White Fleet was one of the biggest events that ever happened in the US Navy. The Cruise of 16 Battleships – huge amounts of steel floating in water – that traveled around the world. They made port on almost every Continent except of the Antarctic and managed a distance of 43.000 miles. Which was more than most persons thought they could do because the American Fleet was never in combat or bigger training missions before. Actually after the end of the Spanish-American War that left the US with colonies all around world, most of the ships were produced and therefore relatively young in duty.

The Idea of moving such a big part – 16 Battleship, which was most of the larger ships in the Atlantic Ocean – arose after Japan was getting more and more provocative. The Japanese felt that President Roosevelt betrayed them after the Japanese-Russo War. The War was clearly won by the Japanese but from their perspective they didn´t got all they deserved and blamed Teddy Roosevelt for it. And also because in 1906 California made some laws against Japanese immigration the Japanese population was getting more and more angry against the US. Together with the fact that Japan had the Sea Power in the Pacific Ocean, it was not likely for the US to defend their new colonies in the Philippines in case of an attack. And so Roosevelt decided to show the world what role America wanted to play. In the Years 1904 to 1907 11 new Battleships were build what was after Great Britain the largest number of ships newly build.

With that new Fleet the US grow to an international sea power. The problem was that most of the ships were deployed in the Atlantic Ocean but Japan, the most likely enemy, would attack in the Pacific Ocean. So Roosevelt decided to show the world and especially Japan that the US could shift their fleet to another Ocean easily. And that´s what happened: on December 16/1907 a fleet of 16 Battleships painted in white left the east coast to travel around the south cap of America and return on to the west coast. What most people didn´t knew and what first got public on the day of the departure was that Roosevelt actually planned to send his fleet around the world.

The Journey around the world was a test and training mission now one of the most powerful fleets on earth. Roosevelt himself said that he wanted to “have failure reported”. But the fleet was constructed very well and besides that two of ships had to be replaced while making port on the west coast and two of the older ones were unable to go real combat all the ships made their way back to the east coast.

The actual need of fleet for the US was very high in this time. And this had different reasons. The most obvious one is that in the late 19^th century almost all the nations that wanted to contribute on the international stage were build ships like they were crazy. And with the UK as the best example what benefits a great Fleet had they did well with building ships. The Sun never sets in the British Empire and even today it is always anywhere Day in Great Britain and it is not likely to change. But this empire was build up of a big fleet and other nations like France lost most of their colonies because they couldn´t support them via sea. And even further back in history where the Greeks stop the invasion of the Persians simply because of controlling the sea.

All those thoughts about a healthy nation that needs a strong fleet where written down by Alfred Thayer Mahan in his book: “The influence of Sea Power upon History”. Where he describes all the aspects of a good and strong fleet that has big ships as the most important part of it. Many nations took his opinion to design their own fleets. Germany and Great Britain even pushed it so far to make an arms race in the pre-WWI time with constructing more ”big ships” than the opponents.

And Great Britain made a good start for that with the launching of the HMS Dreadnought in 1906 which was the model for the following class of Battleships. The Dreadnought class was heavier armed than the so called pre-dreadnought battleships and had a thicker wall. Also the Dreadnought class made all the pre-dreadnought battleships look old and worthless, what was the reason that it was the most often build type of ship in the days before WWI. Also it lead to the construction of even heavier class the super-dreadnought.

The problem with the launch of the HMS Dreadnought was that it started an age of battleships and even a year before the Great White Fleet left port it didn´t contain the newest technology. For example the USS Connecticut that was leading the First squadron of the Great White Fleet was 140 meters long and armed with four 12 inch heavy guns and lot of medium and light artillery. And was able to make remarkable 18.8 kn. The HMS Dreadnought which was now the most wanted tool of nations was 180 meter long and had 10 12 inch guns together with a lot of medium artillery and was design to make a total 22 kn.

But nevertheless: it must have been a great spectacle when the sixteen entirely white painted ships were leaving the east coast with a distance of 400 yards between each other and steaming southwards to make the first rounding of world by the US Navy. And it didn´t failed it purpose because after it was made public that the fleet was going around the world many countries invited them to their harbors to stay. And as we know Japan didn´t attacked the US until WWII so also in this sense the adventure was a full success.