The Great White Fleet

The Centennial Celebration of the U.S. Fleet's worldwide voyage of circumnavigation from 16 December 1907 to 22 February 1909.

A handsome postcard featuring King Edward VII of Australia and President Roosevelt of the United States. Featured in the middle is The Lord Northcote, Australia's 3rd Governor-General
In the twilight of the Old World and Theodore Roosevelt's administration, the president sought to demonstrate growing American naval power by dispatching 14,000 sailors and sixteen U.S. Navy battleships of the Atlantic Fleet along with their escorts, on a worldwide voyage of circumnavigation. The voyage was truly Magellanic for the Panama Canal was not yet open. The ships had to negotiate the Straits of Magellan, and the ice floes of the Southern Ocean, beyond the tip of South America. With their hulls painted white except for the red, white, and blue gilded banners scrollworked on their bows, these ships would famously come to be known as the Great White Fleet.

The fleet was greeted almost everywhere it called with crowds waving American flags. The highlight of the long deployment was probably the foreign port visits to New Zealand and Australia in August and September 1908. The 'Fleet Week' parades and celebrations in Auckland, Sydney, Melbourne and Albany were perfect pandemoniums.