American Navy experience not only in sailing the deep oceans but refueling at sea.

    One of the more amusing incidents concerning the upcoming cruise around the world, occurred when Senator Eugene Hale from Maine, threatened to withhold money for the cruise. In typical Roosevelt fashion he informed the senator that as President he could send the fleet anywhere he wanted and he already had the money to do it. So if the senator wanted them to come back home he would have to approve the money to bring them home.

    The circumnavigation began in the Atlantic with a stop in Port of Spain, Trinidad. From there it crossed the equator on it’s way to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. On 6 January, the fleet steamed across the equator. “Crossing the Line” ceremonies made up the plan of the day. Some 12,000 sailors were introduced to Davy Jones who led them through initiation rites that included a variety of harmless but amusing indignities like having the sailor lay on the deck and tell him “to remove something he didn’t have on in the shower this morning”. The correct answer is the blanket nut - many sailors didn’t realize it until - well- they were running out of clothing options. Following their initiation they were introduced to King Neptune, who rewarded them with a party.


    Following the stop at Rio the Great White Fleet sailed to the Straits of Magellan. The perilous trip was safely made as a Chilean cruiser met and guided the fleet safely through the Straits. From there the fleet stopped at Punta Arenas and Valparaiso, Chile. In Callao, Peru, just north of Lima there was a nine-day celebration that included commemoration of George Washington’s birthday.

    The fleet made stops in Mexico, San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco. While they were there two ships, The USS Maine and USS Alabama were replaced by USS Nebraska and USS Wisconsin. The reason behind this change was due to Maine’s and Alabama’s voracious appetite for coal.

    The fleet made its way across the Pacific with stops at Hawaii, Auckland, New Zealand and Sydney, Austeralia.

After leaving Manila in the Philippines and surviving a typhoon off Formosa the Great White Fleet made landfall in Yokohama, Japan where they were escorted by three Japanese destroyers while school children serenaded their arrival with ‘Hail Columbia’ and the ‘Star Spangled Banner’.

    The fleet then sailed through the Indian Ocean stopping at Colombo, Ceylon and the Suez Canal. Once in the Mediterranean Sea they split into several smaller groups. One group went to Messina, Italy where an earthquake had ravaged the town and provided much needed medical aid and manpower. After several days they were replaced by two ships, one of which was a refrigerator ship. This allowed them to visit Naples and then rejoin the fleet at Gibraltar for the remainder of the cruise.

    Other groups sailed on friendly courtesy missions to Algiers, Tripoli, Marseille, Athens and Malta. Reassembling at Gibraltar as a fleet, they crossed the Atlantic and returned home to Hampton Roads, Virginia. Upon arrival the fleet’s bands played stirring renditions ‘Strike Up The Band’ and ‘There’s No Place Like Home’. At a reception for the crews, President Roosevelt proclaimed “--- this cruise was the most important service that I rendered for peace.”

























    In addition to the goodwill spread throughout the world, for the crews of the Great White Fleet, it was a once in a lifetime experience. For the US Navy it was an abject lesson in warship construction. The voyage brought to light various technical defects in ship design. It was found that, due to the ‘heavy’ weather they encountered, there was a need for greater size and displacement of ships.

    In terms of seaworthiness, there were no mechanical breakdowns however, all the capital ships in the fleet proved wet above deck and humid and dank below, in all but the calmest seas. This led to the flared bows of subsequent U.S. battleships, increased freeboard forward and such spray-reducing measures as the elimination of billboards for anchors (A shelf, or ledge, on the ship’s side to support the flukes of an anchor.) and gun sponsions (a structure projecting from the side





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