Great Gray

USS Nassau came to celebrate Intrepid‘s return?  Actually not.

Rather this was New York’s  centennial celebration of  Roosevelt’s “Great White Fleet,” so named since the ships were painted white for this 43,000 mile voyage

a century ago . . . pre-Panama Canal, meaning the fleet passed through the Straits of Magellan, taking five months for the 14,500 miles from Hampton Roads to San Francisco.  Radio communication was experimental.

And the early 20th-century fleet made no use–that I know–of aircraft.  Balloons? Maybe.

Media I read paid so little attention to this that I wonder how many NYC public school history classes connected this visit with the circumnavigation a century ago?  It could have been a rich “teachable moment” for the next generation.

All photos compliments of bowsprite.