The Visit of the Great White Fleet

WHAT WAS THE BIGGEST public event in the first decade after Federation? According to those who lived through those years it was the visit of the American Great White Fleet to Australia in August 1908. Not only was it a great occasion for the new nation, it helped to forge a close and continuing relationship between the navies of Australia and the United States. The warm reception afforded the Americans on that occasion contrasted to the way our allies were treated later in the century. During the 1980s, visiting US Navy warships were deemed by a coalition of left-wing groups to be prime nuclear targets while their presence in Australian ports symbolised Australia’s complicity in American imperialism.

A PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE

WHEN I WAS FIFTEEN and determined to join the Royal Australian Navy, my father arranged for me to have a guided tour of USS Monticello, a mid-1950s vintage American amphibious warfare vessel, which was berthed at Port Kembla not far from Wollongong, where we lived. Although the ship had been worked hard during the recently concluded Vietnam conflict, its Cold War future was uncertain. Most credible contingencies did not include an opposed landing of troops and supplies. But in the eyes of a teenager, Monticello was big, imposing and indicative of America’s considerable naval might.

The highlight of my tour of the ship was the chance to inspect a small landing craft and to meet the chief petty officer who maintained and operated it. He was a great ambassador for both the ship’s company and the uniformed service he represented. Without any prompting from me or my father, he said how much he was enjoying his first time in Australia and praised the warm and welcoming spirit of Australians. His friendliness was neither forced nor contrived. It was genuine and spontaneous. Although no one had told me why the ship had been sent to Australia, I went home thinking the United States Navy and its personnel were very impressive and was pleased to know that we regarded them as our friends and allies. I later learned that goodwill visits, like that of Monticello to Port Kembla, are an integral part of maintaining an international maritime alliance.

After being admitted to the Royal Australian Naval College in January 1979 and finishing the initial phase of my seagoing training, I was posted to the Fleet Tanker HMAS Supply in January 1985. Several weeks later the American destroyer USS Buchanan sailed into Sydney Harbour after being formally declined permission to enter New Zealand’s ports. Wellington’s drastic action followed the refusal of the United States Navy to either confirm or deny that Buchanan, a conventionally powered Charles F. Adams class guided missile destroyer that was very similar to HMA Ships Perth, Hobart and Brisbane, was carrying nuclear weapons. The Lange government, which knew unofficially that the ship was not nuclear armed, fully intended to create a diplomatic incident that would effectively terminate the ANZUS alliance as a tri-partite security agreement.

To protect Buchanan from protesters in Sydney Harbour, the American ship was tied up at Garden Island dockyard in board the much larger Supply. It was during casual conversations with some of the American destroyer’s junior officers over adjoining guardrails that one volunteered the information that Buchanan had not embarked nuclear weapons for some time. It was, I was told, usual policy to disembark nuclear weapons at Subic Bay in the Philippines before the ship sailed for Australia, New Zealand or the South-West Pacific.

For nearly a week, those serving in Supply (including the author) contended with the often reckless and sometimes dangerous actions of protesters. The purpose of their campaign was to draw attention to their continuing opposition to American warship visits, which they asserted would make Australia a target for Soviet mis- siles in the event of a nuclear war. On several afternoons before Supply, Buchanan and a dozen other warships sailed from Sydney for combined exercises off the coast, my shipmates and I were jeered by bannerwaving protesters as we left the dockyard to go home. They accused us of being warmongers, of being ignorant as to the real purposes and the actual consequences of American ship visits, and of irresponsibility in not condemning nuclear weapons. Our interactions with the protesters were unpleasant and unsettling.

Demonstrations of dissent were a little more restrained two months later when Supply joined the USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) carrier battle group in Fremantle. But when the American nuclear submarine USS Puffer berthed at the naval base in Cockburn Sound where the Australian fleet tanker was also tied up, protesters locked the main gates to HMAS Stirling and prevented Supply’s company from attending Anzac commemorations ashore. It was difficult for uniformed personnel to feel pride in their Navy when they were the focus for such intense hostility from elements of the civilian population. Convincing our American allies that they were indeed our friends was no easy feat either.

CHANGING OUR TUNE

THE CONTRAST between the welcome afforded to Monticello and the hostility directed at Buchanan could be attributed to several factors. In the immediate post-Vietnam period (1975–85), US Navy ship visits steadily became the main focus for expressions of anti-nuclear and anti- American political sentiment in the Australian community. The arrival of an American vessel in Sydney or Melbourne and the allegation that it was armed with nuclear weapons could be exploited by communists, environmentalists, anarchists and pacifists to gain media attention for a range of disparate causes through highly publicised acts of civil disobedience and dramatic instances of wilful damage to government property. By their nature, ship visits could not really be low-key affairs. They provided visual imagery and attracted media coverage—and protesters—keen to capture the limelight.

None of the protest campaigns appeared to be cognisant of the complexities associated with making proper provision for Australia’s maritime security. Hiding behind the otherwise laudable objective of “disarmament”, fringe political groups were appalled that the Hawke Labor government after its election in 1983 had not followed the lead of Prime Minister David Lange in New Zealand in pursuing an “independent” foreign policy that entailed distancing Australia from the United States and suspending American warship visits.

Worse still for the dissidents, as President Ronald Reagan met with General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev for disarmament talks, Prime Minister Bob Hawke was taking Australia even closer to the United States with his offer to assist the Americans in the development of their “Star Wars” missile defence program. Hawke also refused to countenance the closure of the joint Australia-US defence facilities at Pine Gap, Nurrungar and North West Cape. This infuriated the Australian Left, which accused the Hawke government of everything from timidity to sycophancy. Led by the Nuclear Disarmament Party and its star recruit, Peter Garrett, those opposed to American warship visits were adamant that Australia needed to renounce all association with the United States’ military-industrial complex, notwithstanding Australia’s continuing need for advanced military technology and hardware.

The protest movement that encircled USS Buchanan was indiscriminate in its expression and ignorant of its potential consequences. It was one thing to be concerned about the global proliferation of nuclear weapons and the failure of both superpowers to achieve real progress in the reduction of their nuclear arsenals. It was quite another thing to overlook Australia’s maritime security needs—if these needs were understood at all—in agitating for the demise of a critical element in the nation’s defence strategy. Although opponents of American ship visits often used water-borne craft to convey their protest message, they seemed oblivious to the importance of the seas to the peace and prosperity enjoyed by all Australians.

AUSTRALIA’S MARITIME SECURITY CHALLENGE

THEN AND NOW, few citizens of this country realise that Australia possesses the largest icefree maritime zone in the world. In other words, no other country has jurisdiction over as much water as does Australia. These waters contain extraordinarily valuable marine flora and fauna that requires protection alongside the vast reserves of offshore oil and gas. The Australian coastline is also 17,000 kilometres in length, and 95 per cent of all Australians live within 150 kilometres of it. In addition to being the only island continent, Australia claims sovereignty over 8200 off-shore islands, some of them several thousand miles from the mainland. Clearly, Australia requires the assistance of its friends and allies, principally the United States, if it is to maintain some capacity to exert control over its vast maritime sphere. This assistance can take the form of shared technology, the free flow of information and intelligence, and the willingness of other navies to participate in joint operations targeting international criminal activity such as smuggling, piracy, illegal fishing and dumping at sea.

Australia’s national life also relies on seaborne trade. In terms of the distance this trade is carried (the number of tonnes across the number of miles), Australian cargoes comprise more than 10 per cent of world trade. In excess of 70 per cent by value and 95 per cent by volume of Australia’s international cargoes are carried by sea. Free and unfettered access to the sea lines of communication and the security of Australian trade is usually taken for granted. But when trade routes are blocked or ports are closed, the consequences can be dire. The Patrick–MUA waterfront dispute of the late 1990s demonstrated to all Australians the crippling effect of any disruption to the arrival and departure of imports and exports by sea.

Put simply: everyday life is affected when we are unable to exploit the adjacent waters. It is the responsibility of the Commonwealth government to secure our maritime interests. It can do this by encouraging partnerships with nations possessing similar interests, such as the United States, and by promoting the interoperability of naval units, arranging regular maritime exercises around the continent and allowing friendly warships access to Australian ports for rest and recreation, re-fuelling and re-provisioning.

When Australia became a sovereign state in 1901 it was, of course, some considerable way from being an independent nation. Maritime security was provided by ships of the Royal Navy on a contractual basis. When the Australasian Naval Defence Act (1887) expired in 1901, neither the Admiralty in London nor the new Commonwealth government was interested in its renewal. The way was opened for a fresh agreement. But opinion in Australia was sharply divided. There were two schools of thought: those who advocated a separate Australian navy and those who supported the creed of “one Empire—one Navy” and the efficacy of paying the Admiralty to provide for Australian needs. The 1903 Naval Agreement was the interim solution. It involved the continuation of subsidies paid to the Royal Navy. No one liked the arrangement, but the Commonwealth had insufficient funds to consider the alternatives because it was constrained by the “Braddon clause’ (section 87) in the Australian Constitution which required three-quarters of all revenue from customs and excise collected by the Commonwealth in the first decade after Federation to be returned to the states. There was no difference of opinion among policy-makers, however, on Australia’s requirement for some external assistance.

The new nation simply could not meet the challenge of providing maritime security on its own. Partnerships were necessary. While it made good sense and was prudent politics for Australia to secure a post-Federation naval agreement with Britain, successive Commonwealth governments were ready to put sentiment behind security in exploring the appeal of other potential partners. If the Australian people and their property were to be protected, the nation’s earliest politicians were prepared to be creative, notwithstanding the controversy their actions might have caused at home or abroad. In this respect, Alfred Deakin led the way.

HANDS ACROSS THE PACIFIC

DEAKIN’S CRUCIAL ROLE in the establishment of the RAN is rarely acknowledged. He was party to a number of meetings and conferences which were held between 1902 and 1907 to discuss the maritime security needs of the empire and the dominions. The Admiralty wanted to retain overall control and thought globally; the dominion governments wanted to express their autonomy and thought locally. At the 1907 Colonial Conference held in London which Deakin attended as Prime Minister of Australia, he argued that Australia needed its own navy but agreed that it ought to operate within the British Fleet under the overall authority of the Admiralty. The imperial government was not persuaded that this made sense. The Canadians did not immediately warm to the idea of a separate navy force while the New Zealanders favoured the payment of subsidies to the imperial government. With progress stalled, Deakin thought it was time to consider additional options.

On returning from London he learned that a substantial American fleet would be undertaking a worldwide tour starting in 1908. Almost instantly, Deakin thought that the inclusion of Australian ports in the itinerary would serve three important objectives. First, it would generate public support for his naval policy, which involved the creation of a separate Australian fleet. Second, it would signal to London that Australia was dissatisfied with Britain’s contributions to Far East security and its neglect of the empire in the Pacific. Third, it would show both Britain and the United States that they had shared interests in the Pacific and, in the case of the United States and Australia, they had a potential common foe: Japan. But there was a hurdle for Deakin to overcome.

An invitation to the United States government for its 32 Free and unfettered access to the sea lines of communication is usually taken for granted. But when trade routes are blocked or ports are closed, the consequences can be dire. fleet to visit Australia could only be issued by the British government. Under the Colonial Laws Validity Act passed in 1865, imperial legislation was deemed to have priority over colonial and, later, dominion statutes. On May 14, 1900, the Colonial Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain, argued in the House of Commons that the Act continued to have great significance because it constrained newly proclaimed dominions from exercising a foreign policy that was independent from Britain. He welcomed such restraint: “External Affairs is a phrase of great breadth and vagueness which unless interpreted and controlled by some other provision, might easily give rise to serious difficulties.” When the Commonwealth of Australia was established on January 1, 1901, it was generally accepted that it lacked the power to exercise an independent foreign policy. It was not until legislation was enacted simultaneously on March 3, 1986, in both the Australian parliament and the House of Commons that the Act was repealed.

Conscious that there would be some resistance in London to his proposed invitation to Washington, Deakin was determined to give Downing Street little scope for alternative action. He wrote to the American Ambassador in London (Whitelaw Reid) on January 7, 1908, seeking his support for the invitation “shortly to be made”. Deakin explained:

the appearance in the Pacific of such an armada is
an event in the history not only of the United States
but of that ocean … no other federation in the
world possesses as many features of likeness to the
United States as the Commonwealth of Australia and
I doubt whether any two peoples are to be
found who are nearer in touch with each other.

Deakin’s early assessment of the British reaction was correct. The young Winston Churchill, Parliamentary Undersecretary at the Colonial Office, was adamant that “it ought to be discouraged from every point of view”. For its part, the Admiralty hoped that the United States government would decline. When the message was eventually conveyed to Washington through the proper diplomatic channels, Elihu Root, the Secretary of State, remarked: “The time will surely come, although probably after our day, when it will be important for the United States to have all ports friendly and causes of sympathy alive in the Pacific.”

President Theodore Roosevelt immediately recognised the long-term value of accepting the Australian invitation: “Some day the question of the Pacific will be a dominant one and it will be necessary to know the sentiment of Australia and New Zealand.” He decided to publicise the receipt of Deakin’s invitation. This produced a cool reaction at the Admiralty because at that time the Royal Navy could not mount a comparable show of naval strength in the region. The Americans would upstage the British where the British had been dominant for more than a century—at sea. Deakin was unperturbed by the Admiralty’s irritation. When the Americans accepted he told federal parliament: “The least we can do is give three cheers for the United States … I venture to say that a welcome such as no fleet has ever seen outside its own country will be given in Australia to the American Fleet.” He was right.

THE US NAVY IN THE PACIFIC

THE FIRST VISIT of American warships to Australia may have been totally unplanned but it was a complete success. In November 1839 USS Vincennes and USS Peacock sailed into Sydney Harbour unannounced. They were part of an American naval exploration commanded by Lieutenant Charles Wilkes USN. Seeking to give his ships’ companies some rest and recreation after fifteen arduous months at sea, Wilkes arrived off Port Jackson in darkness and brought his ships through the heads to anchor in Neutral Bay without being challenged by the port signal station on South Head. Wilkes later commented: “Had war existed we might, after firing the shipping and reducing the great part of the town to ashes, have effected a retreat before daybreak in perfect safety.”

After the initial embarrassment of seeing the inadequacy of colonial defences plainly demonstrated, the people of Sydney extended a warm welcome to the Americans. As a final farewell gesture, Wilkes’ officers organised a gala ball which was held at Fort Macquarie (the site of the Opera House) with more than 1000 guests. The visit produced immense goodwill and created a very favourable impression of the United States Navy among the colonists. Forty American sailors deserted when the ships departed on the next leg of their expedition which was to Antarctica. This would be the last visit of an American naval formation to Australia for nearly seventy years.

The resurgence of the US Navy in the late nineteenth century was prompted by the imminent collapse of imperial China, the encroachment of Germany and Japan with new possessions in the Pacific and East Asia, the emergence of domestic political slogans promoting the “new manifest destiny” of the United States, and the development of industrial techniques which were particularly relevant to shipbuilding. Each of these factors contributed to growing public interest in naval construction. While the first of the new steel ships had been authorised in 1883, it was not until Secretary of the Navy, Benjamin Tracy, presented his annual report to Congress in 1889 that the construction program had a cogently argued foundation and clearly expressed goals. The US Navy was now able to enhance national development in a tangible manner. There would be two fleets of all-steel steam-driven modern battleships; one fleet in the Atlantic and the other in the Pacific.

Instrumental in America’s new maritime outlook were the writings of Captain (later Rear Admiral) Alfred Thayer Mahan and his enormously influential book The Influence of Seapower upon History, which was published in 1890. Based on a study of British naval policies and accomplishments in the years between 1660 and 1783, Mahan claimed that the great empires of the world had been built on the skilful use of seapower. The underlying lesson was that America needed to develop the distinct components of seapower if it was to become a great nation. This demanded a strong navy and a worldwide network of American colonies supporting forward naval bases.

After 1900, the United States started building Dreadnoughts and became a serious contender for supremacy at sea. By then, America was at war with Spain over possession of Cuba and the Philippines. Under the Treaty of Paris which was signed after the Spanish war, the United States acquired a small empire which it had to defend and protect. In 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt decided the United States would declare itself to be a substantial naval power with the capacity to operate great distances from continental ports. The message was intended primarily for the Japanese.

THE GREAT WHITE FLEET IN AUSTRALIA

THE SIXTEEN WHITE-PAINTED warships comprising the “Great White Fleet” departed from Hampton Roads, Virginia, in December 1907 for a fourteen-month cruise that was to include twenty-nine international ports of call. Sydney and Melbourne each hosted the Fleet for one week. The Fleet then spent one week in Albany (with a population of just 4000 people) while it took on fuel. The Australian response to the visit was overwhelming, the Governor-General, Lord Northcote, recording:

Hundreds of thousands of people lined the shores of
Port Jackson, while every available vessel in the
harbour was crowded with sightseers. I am credibly
informed that the number of people who took part
in the welcome constituted the largest gathering at
any time in the history of New South Wales.

The media shared the public’s exuberance. The Sydney Morning Herald explained:

when the fleet entered the Pacific we remarked that
the centre of gravity of seapower had changed.
What the future of the Pacific is to be only the
future can disclose. It may not be an American lake.
It may not be an American sea. But whatever its
fate, the coming of the fleet … is another
noteworthy stride towards it … It is likely enough
that America may become the first line of defence
against Asia. But whether so or no, the ties now
formed will remain, and we hope that time will
only serve to strengthen them on both sides.

The Fleet’s visit had added significance for the Sydney Morning Herald: it was the first time the newspaper had ever carried photographs. On page nine of the August 21, 1908, edition and without any announcement, the Herald published two images of USS Connecticut rounding South Head and anchoring off Kirribilli Point. The pictures were “half tone reproductions by process block” below the headline: “Australia welcomes America’s Great White Fleet. Over half a million people view the arrival. Spectacle of Unparalleled Majesty.”

When the Fleet was alongside, public holidays were declared and funerals were delayed as a carnival spirit enveloped the host cities with balls, parades, receptions, concerts and parties organised for the visitors. So heavy was the social program “endured” by the 14,000 American sailors that one was reportedly found asleep on a Sydney park bench with a sign he had made attached overhead. It read: “Yes, I am delighted with the Australian people. Yes, I think your park is the finest in the world. Now I am very tired and would like to go to sleep.” So attractive was Australian hospitality that 300 American sailors were pursued as deserters when they failed to return from events ashore.

The Americans made their own observations about Britain’s naval presence in Australia. Lieutenant Commander Ridley McLean, of USS Connecticut, offered some private thoughts on the operational status of the British ships he saw in Sydney:

These vessels were, with the exception of the
Powerful, small and unimportant, and though
frequent conversations were held with the officers,
the comparative inattention given to gunnery on the
Australia Station rendered the information available
of no value and of little interest. Among the British
officers this is known as the “Society Station” and by
tacit consent little work is done.

Concerning interactions between British naval personnel and Australians, McLean thought:

the feeling between the British Officers on this
station and the Australians and New Zealanders
is not the best, the latter in many cases regarding
the officers as snobbish, while they in turn evince
afeeling of suppressed disdain toward the general
class of inhabitants. This feature was very frequently
remarked upon, particularly by the middle classes …
they often mentioned the democratic qualities in
American officers in comparison with the aristocratic
airs of the officers of the Royal Navy.

The Age encouraged the Americans to think these thoughts when it declared that “we Australians would love to think ourselves and the great American republic as travelling through centuries with ever increasing cordiality and love for one another”.

THE FLEET AND AUSTRALIA’S NAVAL FUTURE

THE VISIT of the Great White Fleet was a clear indication that Britain was not the only nation possessing naval might and not the only nation sharing a “natural” bond with Australia and its people. Rear Admiral Charles Sperry, the commander of the American Fleet, told a crowd in Melbourne that the visit would “bring on both nations a realisation of their close relationship and common interests, and foster sympathy and mutual understanding more binding than treaties”.

The Fleet’s visit could not have been better timed to assist the Australian navalists in their campaign. There was a growing fear of both Japanese expansion in East Asia and German imperialism in the Pacific. As the 1907 Colonial Conference had failed to produce any tangible outcomes, Deakin suggested a variation of the increasingly unpopular 1903 Naval Agreement, an arrangement he always thought was “incompatible with the status and dignity to which the new Commonwealth should aspire”. Deakin proposed the creation of an Australian squadron which would consist of six destroyers, nine submarines and two depot ships at a cost of £1,277,500.

As the Great White Fleet sailed around the continent, the Admiralty told the Australian government that it “had difficulty in fully comprehending the extent of the scheme”, which their Lordships believed was beyond Australia’s means. Having given careful consideration to Deakin’s scheme, the Admiralty “could not see their way to accept the proposals as a basis for a new agreement”. The Admiralty waited for the Australians to respond. Deakin’s party lost office at the polls in November 1908 and was replaced by a Labor government led by Andrew Fisher. The new administration promised immediate action on naval defence. The cost and the conditions for sharing the overall responsibility for Australian naval defence became the subject of great debate over the next twelve months. Deakin’s proposals had not met with much domestic support and the only action taken had been to earmark £500,000 of surplus revenue for naval defence. The new Defence Minister, Senator George Pearce, asked the Commonwealth Director of Naval Forces, Captain William Rooke Creswell, to produce some plans for a destroyer program.

The government announced that two destroyers would be built in England with a third to be fabricated in England for subsequent transport and construction in Australia. In clear defiance of Admiralty advice, the design selected was an oil-burning, turbinedriven torpedo-boat destroyer of 600 tons. The armament was one four-inch gun and three twelve-pounders. The main capability was three eighteen-inch torpedo tubes. This prospective vessel was twice the size suggested by the Admiralty and featured a high forecastle to permit sustained high speeds in heavy seas. Australia’s isolation, according to Creswell, was the principal reason for their acquisition:

We are at the end of the world. We are nearly at the
exact point of the antipodes to the heart of the
Empire. Asia, with its illimitable and perhaps
threatening possibilities, is to the north of us.
Foreign bases are being established in the Pacific
around us. Political changes in Europe, not
regarded as improbable, may later determine the
ownership of the immense archipelago stretching
from east to west to the north of us.

The nation’s leading naval adviser said that defence of coastal and international trade was the first consideration, followed by the threat of continental invasion. Because aggressors would come by sea, Creswell argued that Australia needed a navy on which it could rely. By August 1909, the Admiralty dropped its previous objections to an independent dominion navy and suggested that Australia needed to acquire a balanced “Fleet Unit”.

With the proclamation of the Naval Defence Act, all was ready for the Commonwealth government to assume responsibility for Australia’s maritime security. On July 10, 1911, King George V granted the title of “Royal Australian Navy” to the Permanent Naval Forces of the Commonwealth and the title “Royal Australian Naval Reserve” to the Citizen Naval Forces. The abbreviations “RAN” and “HMAS” were also authorised. A Naval Forces Regulation stated that “all ships and vessels of the RAN shall fly at the stern the White Ensign as a symbol of the authority of the Crown, and at the Jack Staff the distinctive flag of the Australian Commonwealth”.

The Australian Fleet Unit ceremonially entered Sydney Harbour on the morning of October 4, 1913. Rear Admiral Sir George Patey, Commander of the Australian fleet, hoisted his flag in the largest warship in the southern hemisphere, the battle-cruiser HMAS Australia. She was followed by the light cruisers Sydney and Melbourne. Their sister ship, Brisbane, would be completed in October 1916. Astern of the two new Australian cruisers was HMS Encounter, which would be recommissioned as an Australian ship, and the two River-class torpedo boat destroyers, Yarra and Parramatta. They were the fastest vessels in the Fleet Unit, capable of twenty-eight knots. Their sister ship, Warrego, had earlier been completed at Cockatoo Island dockyard in Sydney. Three other ships were to be built there—Swan, Huon and Torrens. They entered service in 1916. Vickers Maxims at Chatham built the two submarines, AE 1 and AE 2, which were scheduled to arrive at Sydney in late May 1914. Their passage to Australia would be the longest submarine transit in history.

The Fleet Unit’s arrival in Sydney was easily the proudest moment in Australia’s short national history. Enormous crowds gathered from dawn all around the harbour to gain a good viewpoint. To mark the occasion, all school children in New South Wales were granted a special holiday and given a small silver medallion commemorating the event. Deakin’s objective had finally been achieved.

THE FLEET VISIT

IN HISTORY MOST AUSTRALIAN HISTORIANS agree on the importance of the Great White Fleet’s visit to the future defence and security of Australia. Deakin’s decision to invite the Americans to visit was, Humphrey McQueen thought, “the boldest act of foreign policy” yet seen in Australian politics. Chris Coulthard-Clark described it as “a political master-stroke” that “stimulated public interest and debate”. Douglas Bereuter, the President of the Asia Foundation, argued that it was “the first major foreign policy congruence between Australia and the United States” and a function of Deakin’s determination to cultivate a relationship with the United States “over British foreign policy objections”. Paul Kelly is probably closer to the mark in describing Deakin’s action as “a one-off; its significance was as an omen, not as a strategic reality in its own time”. But what of the reaction of the Australian people?

Frank Crowley said the visit had “an astonishing impact on Australians whose knowledge of naval matters had hitherto been derived from school history books”. Stephen Alomes and Caroline Jones thought the fleet

was welcomed with innocent enthusiasm
throughout Australian ports, as were its
successors later in the century. In what
had become an Australian tradition, with
its roots in the anxieties of the dwellers in
the port capitals of the colonies, the
welcome to the great and powerful fleet
reflected Australian lack of self-confidence
in defence.

Manning Clark characteristically pointed to the existence of less laudable motives:

White Australia, the supremacy of the white man,
would be maintained by the men of the Great White
Fleet in alliance with an Australian defence force.
To mark the occasion the Bulletin changed its slogan
from “Australia for the Australians” to “Australia for
the White Man” on 7 May. The American fleet was
the symbol of the ideal to which Mr Deakin and
Labor were committed—the maintenance of racial
purity.

Of course, the fleet was painted white as a sign of its peaceful intent while there was no Australian defence force even in prospect at that time. This was the very reason Deakin extended the invitation—to highlight Australia’s maritime defence deficiencies. But was the Fleet’s visit really so important?

Ross Lamont has drawn attention to the divergent interpretations of Australia’s naval defence strategy between 1900 and 1914. He contrasts the “orthodox” view of N.K. Meaney and D.C. Sissons that the Russo- Japanese War of 1905 was the defining moment for Australian defence and diplomacy with the “less dramatic but more complex explanation” of J.A. La Nauze and R. Norris that in Deakin’s mind the key issues were not strategic but political and constitutional. Lamont sides with the latter view because he believes that “apart from one failed parliamentary bill”, fears of the Japanese nation did not translate “into anything other than official rhetoric and inquiry”, while the Japanese victory at Tsushima Strait did not “provoke any serious Australian thinking as to the strategic use of any likely Australian naval forces”. Lamont comes to this view after examining the personal papers of Arthur Jose, Australian correspondent for the Times in London and later official naval historian.

Between September 1907 and September 1908, Jose noted that editorials in the Times had consistently made the point that “if Australia drove her pursuit of a White Australia as far as a serious quarrel with Japan, then she should not count on being defended by the Royal Navy”. Looking back on this period, Jose commented:

a Times leader made us jump by telling us that
White Australia depended on the British Fleet, and
that the fleet would probably not be available if White
Australia meant war: and that, not the [visit of the]
American fleet, was the beginning of the active
local-squadron movement.

Acknowledging that Australia might have been required to deal with Japan on its own, Deakin was obliged to take decisive action to provide an Australian fleet in addition to ensuring that the nation had allies other than Britain. Lamont claimed that Deakin finally “came off the rhetorical fence” and started work on a defence bill that would be presented to federal parliament.

By the following year, the Admiralty had started to become concerned with Japanese naval power and dropped objections to the idea of an Australian navy. But rather than encouraging the acquisition of a coastal defence squadron, the Admiralty proposed the purchase of a “Fleet Unit”. Lamont contends:

The Australian fleet unit agreed in 1909, however,
bore practically no resemblance to almost all of the
ideas previously debated in Australia. With definite
potential to participate in a strategy of deterring
Japan,
this fleet resulted from a fortuitous, eccentric
and ultimately evanescent development in Imperial
policy. In 1909 Admiralty concern at Japan’s rising
power coincided with Australian fears of that nation.
The outcome, thereby, was not the attainment of an
independent Australian navy. Instead Australia
acquired a fleet unit subject more to imperial
consideration and strategic requirements than to
Australian.

I take a different view. Deakin was concerned with Australian nation-building and realised in 1908 that he could persuade the Australian people to buy a substantial naval flotilla and that with the end of the “Braddon clause” the time had finally come to devise plans for the post-1910 period when funds for naval capital expenditure would finally be available. Creswell and others had previously developed plans for what was possible rather than desirable.

Navies were symbols of national prestige and, in the shadow of Federation, a demonstration that Australian nationhood actually meant something. The Admiralty agreed to the establishment of an Australian navy because it served Britain’s interests to do so. The visit of the Great White Fleet was less to do with courting an ally and more with encouraging local interest in, and financial commitment to, an Australian navy. It is for this reason that fleet visits and naval reviews proved so attractive to politicians and naval officers in the ensuing years. These events have paved the way for increased spending on naval defence because Australia has wanted to avoid the humiliation of having a navy that is second-rate when compared with its close friends and nearer neighbours. Navies are one of the few means by which national pride can be asserted at home and abroad.

THE WAY AHEAD

THE RUDD GOVERNMENT has revealed its intention to maintain a close and co-operative national relationship with the United States. This makes good sense on a number of fronts. While the RAN has demonstrated its continuing capacity to promote the maritime interests of the Australian people, to safeguard its marine flora and fauna and to enhance the nation’s dealings with Papua New Guinea and the island states of the South Pacific, Australia still does not have the economic base or national wealth necessary to provide a navy sufficiently large that it can meet every maritime need alone and unaided. Partnerships are needed and the US Navy is best placed to assist.

The continuation of a ship visit program and the warm welcome afforded to American naval personnel is integral to the working relationship that needs to be maintained between the two navies for effective operations at sea, and for the flow of technical expertise and strategic intelligence that money cannot buy. Displays of hospitality and expressions of generosity distinguish friends from mere acquaintances. This is why reciprocated ship visits are so vitally important to Australia’s relationship with the United States. The centenary of the Great White Fleet’s visit should not, therefore, be allowed to pass without acknowledgment of its historic significance and some recognition of its enduring contribution to the quality of life now enjoyed by all Australians.

Professor Tom Frame is a former naval officer
and author ofPacific Partners: A History of
Australian American Naval Relations
(Hodder & Stoughton, 1992).