Teddy Roosevelt's Great White Fleet

by James R. Reckner

Book Overview

Drawing on previously untapped sources, naval historian James Reckner provides a complete picture of the fleet that thrust the United States into the ranks of great world naval powers. His fresh... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 087021697X
• ISBN13: 9780870216978
• Release Date: January 1988
• Publisher: US Naval Institute Press
• Length: 221 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.4" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Excellent History of this Historic Fleet

James Reckner's "Teddy Roosevelt's Great White Fleet" is an excellent, short, readable history of the Great White Fleet's voyage around the world in 1907-09. Reckner gives a detailed but not tedious account of the sixteen battleships as they traveled from Hampton Roads, Virginia, around Cape Horn, up to San Francisco, across the Pacific, and then home via the Suez Canal and Mediterranean. In addition to the narrative of the Great White Fleet's journey, Reckner places this journey into the context of both the geopolitical struggles as the United States struggled to emerge as a world power and the political struggles as the United States Navy attempted to reform. However, in doing so, Reckner is careful not to overstate the fleet's importance - an unusual course for an author, because they usually feel compelled to overstate their subject matter's importance to justify they attention that they devote to it. Although this is an excellent book, it would have benefited from at least one map showing the fleet's journey. Also, the author missed a couple of opportunities to educate the reader about the early twentieth century Navy and the customs of the Navy (such as the cannon salutes to colors). Although I am not a huge fan of social history, I would like to have known more about the sailors in the fleet and the actual operation of those battleships. Ultimately, this is an excellent, concise history of this historic voyage. Reckner admirably recounts the history of the Great White Fleet and its impact on American and international history. I recommend this book to anyone interested in American military history or naval history.

Excellent Summary of TR's Great White Fleet

James Reckner, a professor of history at Texas Tech University and a former officer in the United States Navy, examines the around-the-world cruise of the U.S. Navy's Atlantic Battleship Fleet in. Using government documents, newspapers, unpublished manuscripts, and a wide variety of secondary sources, Reckner argues that the logistical and diplomatic accomplishments of the Great White Fleet's cruise, which sailed the world from December 1907 to February 1909, remained a decisive factor in testing the capabilities of the U.S. Navy. The author suggests that historians have mistakenly emphasized the fleet's effect on diplomacy without considering the technical aspect of the fleet's voyage. Reckner asserts that the need to test the fleet proved the overriding consideration behind the Navy Department's decision to conduct the cruise. He highlights the significance of the cruise by repeatedly pointing out the number of obstacles facing early twentieth-century vessels, specifically that battleships of the period were far less reliable than modern warships. Reckner argues the Great White Fleet proved an influential cause behind the U.S. Navy's re-examination of its organization and battleship design during the world's unprecedented naval expansion prior to World War I. Reckner examines the state of naval affairs at the turn of the century and how it influenced a change in American naval policy during the Roosevelt administration. He traces the fleet's voyage of sixteen battleships and over 14,000 men as they departed from Hampton Roads, Virginia and sailed down the coast of South America, up the West Coast, only to pause for several weeks in San Francisco Harbor. While at California, naval officials reorganized the fleet and the ships got underway to cross the Pacific. After sailing to Hawaii, the fleet headed south to New Zealand and then Australia, Manila, Yokohama, Ceylon, Suez, various ports in the Mediterranean, before finally returning home to Virginia. Reckner reveals that the fleet's voyage of over 45,000 nautical miles produced a great deal of publicity for the United States Navy, ultimately boosting the prestige of American naval power abroad. However, he underscores the fact that the fleet had other national and international purposes as well. First, the U.S. Navy had to train the crews and determine the fleet's coal and provisions requirements. Reckner argues that the voyage confirmed various aspects of the Naval War College's new "War Plan Orange," the recently developed war plan against Japan. Second, the cruise launched a critical reexamination of the navy's administrative structure and the design for new ships. It ultimately led the U.S. Navy toward modernization, greater efficiency, and professionalism. Despite the effects of Roosevelt's Great White Fleet on naval matters, Reckner argues, the ultimate result of the fleet's voyage was its effect on foreign policy. The author points out that the traditional interpretat