The Great White Fleet - The Party is On!

[Music] [Music] in the mid 1900s the USA in general and the US Navy in particular faced a bit of an issue for most of its existence the US Navy had been somewhat underfunded by Congress with a few early presidents even objecting to its existence entirely although apples had not quite been reduced to rattling tins in the streets of the worst of these times when requests from wealthy older citizens and the odd like you find down the back of a sofa might represent a good day for your budget you knew you had some issues the Navy had been in receipt of suddenly colossal funding during the American Civil War but Congress seemed determined to make up for that in the decades that followed with most of the US Navy's strength of vanishing almost as fast as it had appeared as the budget went into a freefall it would take the threat of the Brazilian Navy becoming the most powerful on either of the American continents to persuade Congress to release funding for some new ships albeit even then the amount that they granted was far short of what the US Navy actually wanted but it was enough that come the spanish-american war the US Navy had enough ships just to decisively defeat the Spanish Navy at Cuba the Philippines and many other smaller locations these achievements along with the acquisition of new possessions especially the Philippines meant that the u.s. Navy would continue to receive enough funding to build a series of new battleships some cruisers and even believe it or not a handful of destroyers plus with Theodore Roosevelt's speak softly and carry a very big stick policy in place the USA was beginning to be a bit more assertive of its place in the world the issue came from the fact that whilst the USA certainly felt itself to be worthy of a seat at the table of the great powers most of the other great powers were less than impressed as far as they were concerned the USA had been almost entirely isolationist the US Navy a little more than a coastal defense force with occasional ambitions and their victory against a European navy that possessed one whole battleship that hadn't actually even fought any of the engagements in the war wasn't considered especially remarkable by powers who found odd battleships that they'd really forgotten about in the backs of their cupboards and in random ports scattered across their domains therefore in order to properly announce their arrival on the world stage Roosevelt thought the best thing to do would be a friendly show a strength this would serve multiple purposes first it would show the world that the US Navy was a serious force with many modern warships and thus should not be trifled with second it would serve to remind Japan that they weren't the only rising power in the Pacific third it would remind European countries that messing around in the Americas wouldn't be quite as easy as it might once have been fourth it would give some practical experience for the US Navy and how to back up all of the above points by forcing them to undertake the logistical effort of supporting a globe spanning fleet voyage v it would provide some good lessons on ship design and handling in the open ocean for a fleet that was really only now thinking on this scale in the age of steam and steel and SiC the peacetime US Navy paintjob looked really good and the rest of the world really needed to see and appreciate it at close range such a move was not without internal or external precedent the squadron of evolution also known as the white squadron had sailed to various overseas ports in the 1890s and in the mid 1900s the US Navy had begun popping up at the location of major international disputes and negotiations to represent the USA's interest in these matters outside of the US the visit of naval ships squadrons or fleets was by the start of the 20th century a key element of international posturing and diplomacy a single ship or a small squadron was a subtle reminder of pre-existing power a larger squadron or a fleet was a less subtle way of making a relatively blunt point that usually translated as don't even think about it but on the other side of the coin they could also be used where relationships were already good too as a form of courtesy and honor indeed the USA had invited a number of foreign ships to make courtesy calls in their ports and had received a number of reciprocal invitations over the past few years however a void this scale with a large fleet was very definitely a much bigger statement on the global stage than the US Navy had ever previously made nevertheless there were a number of concerns raised within the US Navy yet at the plan which was not actually that widely known the cover Roosevelt put in place was a training exercise requiring the fleet to sail to the west coast whilst intended to demonstrate the new global reach of the USA to the public while teaching the US Navy how to actually do that in private officers pointed out that these lessons could be learned by sailing along the USA's extensive coastline and that putting the fleet on such a public stage could backfire massively if they got lost right now fuel broke down or ended up ramming into each other because of previously undiscovered issues however the president was insistent that to quote I want all failures blunders and shortcomings to be made apparent in time of peace and not in time of war there was also the issue of where the ships would get their supplies from if it was to prove the US Navy was capable of going anywhere it wanted to then they couldn't rely on foreign ports as these would be largely closed to them in the event of war unlike the British the USA didn't have a wide range of overseas coaling stations and port facilities unlike the Imperial Japanese Navy they specifically weren't mainly concerned with matters within range of their homeland and unlike France or Germany the few u.s. colonial possessions that they did have were not strategically placed across the world nor have they been in its ownership long enough to build up the need for port facilities where such colonies did in fact exist even in the US for that matter there was a shortage of ports that could support the bulk of the u.s. ends capital ships all at the same time there were some solutions of course reopening certain West Coast shipyards and docks would help as at this time the most of the US Navy was based on the East Coast and one u.s. admiral suggested building a fleet of supply ships but that particular solution would have to wait for another time instead the u.s. decided to solve the issue by charting American flagged merchantman bring coal and other supplies to ships at various ports on the journey whilst the use of American flag ships made sense in terms of practicing for wartime deployment and laws at the time also technically required it this did run into a few issues firstly there weren't that many suitable ships flying the American flag and secondly many of those that did exist had captains or owners whose patriotism extended exactly as far as the greenback's did and no further and when they couldn't find cargoes that they could acquire that would pay for their return trips they either refused to bid for the supply contracts entirely which were of course only one way or else they quoted prices that would allow them to sail home empty and still make a profit which was never going to get any kind of responsible financial sign-off indeed as people started to find out about the real plans for the fleet's voyage and many dissenting voices were raised with some worried that the Japanese might take the opportunity to attack the fleet in their own home waters and yes more than one paper did raise the specter of the dreaded Japanese torpedo boat others worried that a European power might take advantage of the lack of major ships on the East Coast to enact some form of shenanigans and still others thought that ships might be lost or damaged passing through some of the more notoriously dangerous waters of the planet such as the Straits of Magellan in fact a senator from Maine threatened to withhold the money set aside for the expedition except he appeared to forget that he was threatening Theodore Roosevelt who after quickly checking he'd actually already got the money in hand challenged the senator to and I quote try and get it back whether the senator actually took this warning to heart or whether he was later found curled up and crying under a bush on the White House lawn remains unknown to history still whilst some US merchant ships did answer the call to supply the fleet the majority of the Collier flee ended up having to be sourced from the largest merchant marine on the planet and so the fleet would be supplied primarily by ships flying the Red Ensign of the British Empire's Merchant Navy this was somewhat inconvenient as one of the major aims of the exercise was to impress Japan and the message would be somewhat diluted by being something along the lines of we can certainly come over there and deal with you as long as your single biggest ally consents to bring us the fuel but the whole point of the voyage was to identify these kinds of problems and overcome them and so the fleet began to assemble it represented the bulk of the u.s. Navy active strength and would soon be enough to be dubbed the Great White Fleet on account of the rather fetching peacetime US paint scheme of the period which the cruise would of course take care to maintain along the voyage as long as the paint suppliers held the main force would sail from Hampton Roads on the 16th of December 1907 with Admiral Rob Lee D Evans in charge preceded by the armored cruiser USS Washington which would make a final port arrangements and the like along the way at least until it was time to head out across the Pacific leading the fleet was a division made up of the latest Connecticut class battleships USS Connecticut herself then Kansas Vermont and Louisiana next came the Virginia class USS Georgia New Jersey Rhode Island Virginia herself after that the remaining Connecticut class USS Minnesota would lead the main Missouri and Ohio and lastly came the Alabama Illinois Kearsarge and Kentucky these 16 battleships would be loosely followed on the up until trans-pacific leg by six destroyers and they're tender and a small fleet train of to store ships or repair ship another tender and a hospital ship would also accompany the fleet this time all the way around the world the crew of the fleet would in fact only discover their full itinerary along with the rest of the planet on the day of sailing but morale was boosted quite considerably as they headed south by a veritable deluge of friendly invitations from ports and countries across the world who really wanted them to come and visit it seemed that much of the rest of the planet was quite taken by the shiny white battle fleet and everyone was eager to see it at close range this first part of the voyage was no small task involving almost as much sailing as would be needed to get from the continental United States to Japan why well the Panama Canal didn't quite exist yet and as USS Oregon had done about a decade earlier the Great White Fleet would have to go around the southern tip of South America only they were going the other way including stopover time in the various South American ports it would take just over four months for the fleet to make its way around to San Francisco where the first evaluations of its effectiveness could be made it would also prove to be quite the eventful section of the trip with the first stop in Trinidad admittedly being something of a letdown the main attractions apparently being a leper colony and one building that served tepid beer the next stop in Brazil was a lot more exciting kicking off with a full-on running battle through the streets between local sailors and the US fleets liberty parties after a bar fight got out of hand however the issue was smoothed over and the rest of the visit went very well by all accounts which was just as well considering that the US media was now shifting to the opinion that sending the fleet through the Straits of Magellan littered as as as it apparently was with places like Delusion Bay desolation Island and point famine would inevitably result in the whole enterprise has been eaten by cannibals what actually happened was that bemused and decidedly non cannibalistic Chilean Cruiser appeared and guided the fleet safely through to their next stop which consisted of Aris Chilean ports where the decidedly unknown arms of the US sailors promptly gained a considerably more exercise in the ritual lifting of heavy beer glasses followed by lowering the considerably lightened vessels and awaiting a refill a subsequent visit to Peru prompted a similar outpouring of celebrations and parties which helped offset the bi-weekly coaling exercise which in itself was bad enough but since they were there to look good it was generally followed by a several day long exercise of scrubbing away all the coal dust and smudges both for appearances sake and because everyone remembered what happened at the second Pacific squadron when taken under fire a few years earlier after a stop off the Mexican coast for gunnery practice which was aimed out to see since the American in war was not currently on they sailed into California albeit luckily not literally to enjoy free barbecue lemonade and flowers amidst all the fun there would be a few changes Admiral Evans had gotten quite ill and would be replaced by Admiral Sperry also replaced were USS Maine and USS Alabama whose mechanical issues and voracious appetite for coal meant that they weren't doing quite as well as the rest of the fleet in their place USS Nebraska and USS Wisconsin joined the formation and the order of the fleet was slightly rejigged the two battleships that were left behind weren't entirely out of the party however as they'd also get to complete around-the-world voyage only by a slightly different shorter route as a lone pair after elements of the fleet which were touring up and down the west coast will call back into formation the Great White Fleet then headed west on the next leg of the voyage trans-pacific via Hawaii this leg proved to be quite the fun adventure as well although if you can believe it after South America the west coast a week in Hawaii and just over a week in Australia even the partying stamina of the u.s. sailor was beginning to be exhausted with one poor soul being found to sleep on a park bench in Sydney having first crafted a sign which he'd placed above himself reading 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 the excellent hosts that they were the Australians kindly let him sleep the fleet would then work its way up Australia's East Coast with the flagship acquiring a kangaroo as a mascot from somewhere before heading off toward the Philippines the party was however brought to a sudden halt by an outbreak of cholera in Manila which rather put paid to any shore leave all those mail packet did catch up with a fleet so everyone got to catch up with what was new at home and presumably reassure some of their relatives that they had not in fact been eaten by cannibals with that port call the bust they headed north again at 4:00 Japan which had actually invited them to visit only for the fleet to run into a typhoon and not just any typhoon this one was so that the wave troughs along with the peaks were deep enough that entire battleships seemed to drop off the face of the planet only to pop up again in a completely different location one sailor however managed to become the luckiest man alive when a massive wave smashed him and a good chunk of the ship's railing clear over the side there was basically zero chance of any rescue efforts being mounted even if they knew where he was in the roiling maelstrom the way even rolled on down the line of ships smashing into various other capital ships and sometime later good news was signaled the sailor in question had fetched up somewhat the worse for wear on the deck of one of the other ships who promised to keep him warm and well fared in till his original posting could arrange to collect him it was a testament to the construction of the u.s. battleships even the ones technically designed for coastal defense whether they emerged without any serious damage beyond the odd misplaced sailor still they were rather grateful when the Japanese Coast appeared albeit that shore leave was somewhat more strictly controlled here to avoid causing a diplomatic incident in the relatively delicate US Japanese relationship of the time since well the kind of running fight that had greeted their first few days in Brazil would probably be something more of a disaster here with that said the reception that greeted the Great White Fleet was as warm and inviting as any that they previously had with the few issues that arose largely being cultural misunderstandings that were mostly fairly easily sorted out albeit that one of the most amusing ones occurred when Admiral Sperry was being hosted aboard the Japanese battleship Mikasa yeah that one and in the middle of drinks with his fellow officers he was suddenly seized by a group of Japanese sailors who proceeded to thrice hurl him into the air with a none company and cry of Banzai the Japanese they're here the time this was considered quite the honor and this was thus explained to him once the poor bed had recovered his wits Ernst rated his uniform luckily Sperry was as excellent diplomat as he was an officer and he accepted the compliment with good Huber now I don't know about you but I have a feeling there's probably quite a few crewmen in various navies who would deeply welcome the return of the idea of hurling their officers skyward several times being considered a form of compliment all in all this particular stop was seen as a singular success rather than put the Japanese's collective backs up but lovely and actually significantly increased Japanese goodwill toward the USA which was sorely needed given that anti-japanese riots and segregation in the western half of the United States had been something of a sore spot relatively recently the fact that a Japanese flag was saved from a fire on a ceremonial display piece by US sailors certainly helped boost the reputation of the average US sailor onks the Japanese populace as well the next stop though almost was a bit of a disaster the fleet split in half with one half heading south for gunnery practice whilst the other half continued on to China whoo well of course by this point expecting all 16 battleships and their support vessels when only eight showed up it looked very much like a slap in the face especially since their arch-rivals Japan had just had the full fleet visit in private the gunnery exercise was accepted as a plausible reason in public though the local officials opted for a much more believable line the American fleet would dearly have loved to visit mighty China with all 16 ships but unfortunately they had to run into another storm which had scattered or sunk half of them and that these poor ships were just the survivors well with the visit concluded the eight ships left and headed southeast where they magically discovered the missing ships all in good form and headed out across the Indian Ocean dropping in on several ports that lay under British control primarily Colombo in what is now Sri Lanka where of course the primary gift that was given to them was drumroll please complimentary supplies of tea what's on their way to the Suez Canal and they received word of a devastating earthquake in the Straits of Messina which lies between Italy and Sicily which had all but flattened a number of Italian cities including Messina itself in both a diplomatic and humanitarian move the Connecticut and Illinois along with several of the support ships set off at top speed to help in the relief efforts where they join significant portions of the Italian Navy two French battleships and three destroyers two Russian battleships along with two cruisers and a British battleship along with a cruiser squadron in an all-hands relief effort the rest of the fleet spread out amongst various Mediterranean ports crossing paths with various other naval squadrons that were steaming to and fro amidst the hub of activity that was the early 1900s Mediterranean but after about a month it was time to head home and the fleet reassembled once more at Gibraltar getting back into line formation before striking out across the Atlantic for home and so after 14 months at sea slightly less than white fleet with the Atlantic having exacted its usual toll arrived back at its starting point in late February to a hero's welcome with the crowds undiminished by the somewhat inclement weather on the day of arrival a lead amongst those welcoming the fleet home was Theodore Roosevelt himself with just two weeks left of his presidency he was eager to see the great voyage completed and the evaluation of the journey began almost immediately with both positives and negatives identified on the positive side the status of the US Navy and by extension the USA you know the world had gone up dramatically in large part due to the spectacularly successful Tokyo port visit and the assistance that they'd rendered at Messina additionally the voyage had largely proven that the US Navy could send a substantial force almost anywhere in the world without suffering massive breakdowns or navigational errors it also provided valuable experience in ship handling on such voyages which would then allow the US Navy to plan more realistically for future operations the negatives were largely in the forms of lessons learned whilst compact ships were an attractive proposition crop cost wise they proved to be quite wet in anything but a flat calm large superstructures caused excessive roll and casement guns tended to flood out at this latest hint of a wave particularly the nearly shear boughs of some US battleships tended to cut right into the water and then dump a bunch of it onto the main deck and guns additionally whilst the fleet was impressive by the time they'd reached the Mediterranean a lot of talk was about the new type of battleships being built HMS dreadnought and HMS Bellerophon were already in service with more coming down the slipways and in many ways the Great White Fleet was a final display of yesterday's ships this however all prompted a series of design changes in u.s. battleship construction the South Carolina and Delaware and Florida classes were already under construction at various stages by the time all these lessons were appreciated but the Wyoming's were still to get funded and this class and subsequent vessels would see the secondary battery gradually moving higher and higher on the ship's side boughs becoming more angled and flared smaller overall superstructures deeper armored belts taller turrets and a shift towards standardized requirements for the speed and agility of future u.s. battleships it would also sadly see the loss of the white color scheme replaced by standard gray as well as start on the construction of a series of fleet support and supply ships especially Collier's to allow the fleet to repeat this kind of deployment when neutral ports and usual shipping were not available to them all in all the voyage was a significant milestone in the history of the u.s. Navy and would establish it as an ocean-going Navy as well as set into a motion a series of changes that would define the US Navy for the next 20 to 30 years proving to be the single most formative experience for the u.s. n until pretty much world war ii still I think they should have kept the paint job that's it for this video thanks for watching if you have a comment or suggestion for a ship to review let us know in the comments below don't forget to comment on the pinned post for drydock questions

Channel: Drachinifel

Views: 381,381

Keywords: USN, Admiral Sperry, wows, world of warships, Great White Fleet, MEssina Earthquake, USS Conneticut, White Squadron

Id: nbV3qRIh-ro

Length: 24min 47sec (1487 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 10 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/cmptrnrd]

US troops arrested in South Korea for firing fireworks and brawling

Clearly a proud US tradition.