Pearl Harbor, then the site of a basic Naval station equipped with the barest of necessities for maintaining a naval presence, was an ideal spot for safeguarding the fleet, but it was in need of improvement-primarily dredging to deepen the channels allowing access to the harbor and a dry dock for repairing vessels. Ironically, “only eight miles away one of the finest natural harbors in the world, a place of shelter just now more important to the United States from a military and commercial standpoint than any harbor it possesses,” The Sun reported on Pearl Harbor after the fleet’s visit. Even then, there was insufficient space for coaling near Honolulu without difficult maneuvers four of the ships had to travel 70 miles to the Island of Maui to refuel, while others were only able to squeeze one-by-one into the Honolulu harbor. The fleet was forced to drop their anchors in open water near Honolulu as there was not enough room for all 16 ships in the city’s harbor. There was just one problem: the Great White Fleet had nowhere to dock in Honolulu. Hawaii, then a territory of the United States and recognized as the “crossroads of the Pacific” for its position between the West Coast and the United States’ colonial and territorial possessions in the Philippines and Guam, was a natural stopping point for the fleet, reflecting America’s expanding geographical reach. Crowds gathered to witness what was to be America’s answer to Britain’s dominant sea power in a new age of imperial expansion. In July of 1908, the Great White Fleet-President Theodore Roosevelt’s impressive armada of 16 dazzling white battleships under the command of Rear Admiral Robley “Fighting Bob” Evans-stopped at Honolulu, Hawaii on its global tour.
Top Image: A “Map of the Pacific” featuring Hawaii published in the Illinois Evening Bulletin in 1911.
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