Great White Fleet 1907: British Coal, a Cornered Congress and Flawed Armor

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In December 1907, 16 white-painted American battleships left Hampton Roads, Virginia, on a 14-month, 43,000-mile voyage around the world ordered by President Theodore Roosevelt. Fresh from the Spanish-American War and holding the Philippines, the U.S. had a navy untested far from home. Japan had destroyed Russia's Baltic Fleet at Tsushima in 1905 after a long, draining voyage, and anti-Japanese discrimination in San Francisco, including school segregation, had raised talk of war. Roosevelt framed the cruise as a friendly courtesy visit, a show of his motto to speak softly and carry a big stick.

The U.S. lacked coaling stations and a merchant fleet willing to carry fuel, so of 38 contracted supply ships only eight were American and most were British, even though Britain was allied with Japan. When Senator Eugene Hale threatened to withhold funds, Roosevelt said he had money to send the fleet to the Pacific and Congress could pay to bring it home. The fleet passed the Strait of Magellan with a Chilean escort, was cheered in Australia, where the visit built support for a Royal Australian Navy, and received a lavish welcome in Yokohama in October 1908. After the return in February 1909, officers reported the ships were outclassed by HMS Dreadnought and had dangerous design flaws.

• Mare Island was too silted for the battleships, so Roosevelt pushed to reopen the private Hunters Point shipyard in San Francisco.
• The Maine and the Alabama broke down and were swapped out at San Francisco.
• After the December 1908 Messina earthquake, sailors from the USS Illinois recovered the bodies of the American consul and his wife.
• Mixed-caliber guns made shell splashes hard to tell apart, limiting accurate range compared with all-big-gun ships.
• An eight-foot armor belt could lift out of the water as ships rolled, and the findings vindicated Captain William Sims and gave line officers a say in ship design.