Looking back on Teddy Roosevelt 's Great White Fleet of 16 Battleships that set sail a hundred years ago this week to announce American Naval power projection.
After winning the Spanish American War (1898) by default and defeating the basically third rate Spanish Navy the United States was seen as an emerging naval power by old Europe. Another shock was given the old world naval powers of Europe when the Russian Navy, a second rate force that only ranked behind that of Britain, Germany and France, was bested soundly by the almost infant Japanese Navy in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905).
A hundred years ago this week Teddy Roosevelt announced to the world that the United States Navy was ready to take the fight to the sea anywhere it may be. Concerned over Japans new prestige in the Pacific and wanting to make it known to Europeans of every inclination that the US Navy was able to project its countries power, the Great White Fleet took to the sea. This fleet of four battleship squadrons with escorts, their hulls painted white with red white and blue banners on their bows, embarked on a 43,000 mile voyage around the world visiting six continents in two years. Their 14,000 sailors included men who had served in the Civil war over forty years before and had seen first hand how the fleet had changed since the age of iron cannons, wood and sail.
Teddy would be proud to know that today the Great White Fleet, now painted haze gray, is still on patrol a hundred years later.
