Early in his tenure in the Navy Department, Roosevelt installed a large map of the world on his office wall, displaying the location of every ship in the fleet. Using pins to indicate each vessel and changing their locations in accordance with the ships’ movements, FDR had a clear picture of the size and scope of the fleet, its activities, and its relative strengths and shortcomings, and graphically saw what the sixty-five thousand officers and enlisted men of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps were up to on any given day.
Taken together, the pins also provided him a precise overview of America’s national and international ambitions as they were perceived by the Wilson administration in the last few months before the chaos of World War I changed everything.
As it happened, when he had cause to examine the map on February 12, 1914, the pins were in a relatively circumscribed area. All the Navy’s ships were located between the longitudes of Haiti in the east and Canton, China in the west, with the exception of one small gunboat used as a station ship at Constantinople.
Reading from west to east—that is, from left to right—and starting with the Asiatic Fleet, the Navy was operating five light-draft river gunboats on the Yangtze River, as well as two others near Canton. (American gunboats had been in place on the Yangtze since the nineteenth century, maintaining a friendly patrol to protect American interests in the area and to discourage the activities of local warlords and river pirates. These were not the cruisers that General Leonard Wood had wanted shifted to Manila in 1913.)
To the south, concentrated in the Philippines, lay the main body of the Asiatic Fleet, a total of twenty-one vessels including the cruisers Saratoga, Cincinnati, and Galveston, the monitors Monterey and Monadnock, one gunboat, five torpedo-boat destroyers, six submarines, and four auxiliaries. These vessels were deemed sufficient to guard the various American interests in the Far East, but Roosevelt knew that in time of war they would be all but useless against an attack by a modern battle fleet such as the Imperial Japanese Navy.
Moving eastward, a single gunboat “protected” the island of Guam, and another gunboat “protected” Tutuila, or American Samoa. There were no naval vessels whatsoever in the Hawaiian Islands, but Roosevelt knew this was only a temporary situation, because ongoing construction at Pearl Harbor would soon make it an important strategic base.
On the American mainland, the Pacific Reserve Fleet was stationed at Puget Sound and consisted of the predreadnought battleship Oregon; the armored cruisers South Dakota, West Virginia and Colorado; the cruisers Albany, Charleston, Chattanooga, St. Louis, and Milwaukee; two submarines; and five auxiliaries. These vessels, like those in the Philippines, were outdated. They were manned by skeleton crews, and Roosevelt thought of them as place-savers for the modern fleet he was hoping Wilson—and Congress—would authorize.
In San Francisco Bay, the cruisers Cleveland and Marblehead were held in reserve and would require refitting and manning before they could be sent to sea. Also in reserve were four torpedo-boat destroyers and two torpedo boats. Those vessels actually fit for sea duty included only one gunboat, four submarines, and two auxiliaries.
On that particular day, off the California coast between Santa Barbara and San Diego, five torpedo-boat destroyers and a mother ship were engaged in their annual maneuvers; two submarines and a monitor were undergoing practice drills; and the armored cruisers Maryland and California were holding winter target practice.
South of the border, on the Pacific coast below San Diego, the armored cruiser Pittsburgh was patrolling the troubled waters off the Mexican coast, along with the cruisers Raleigh and New Orleans, one gunboat, and one auxiliary.
Still farther south, the cruiser Denver was proceeding to relieve the transport Buffalo at Corinto, Nicaragua, where, Roosevelt explained somewhat opaquely to a visitor, “the State Department has considered the presence of an American warship desirable.”
It was on the Atlantic side of North America that the Navy maintained its chief strength. Far to the north, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the fleet tug Potomac, bound on an errand of mercy to rescue the crews of American fishing boats caught in the ice floes, had herself been caught and was in danger of destruction.
At Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the cruiser Tacoma was undergoing repairs. At Boston, the predreadnought battleship New Jersey, recently returned from Mexico, was being overhauled. The armored cruiser North Carolina and the cruiser Chicago were in reserve, and a new submarine was in the process of being commissioned. At Newport, Rhode Island, four old torpedo boats were in reserve and a submarine was being fitted out.
At New York, the dreadnought battleship North Dakota, which FDR had so triumphantly inspected at Campobello the previous July 4, was under repair; the dreadnought Arkansas was in quarantine, with a few cases of illness aboard; the armored cruiser Washington was being used as a receiving ship; one gunboat was in reserve; and a monitor and a submarine were preparing for the formation of a new submarine division.
At the Philadelphia Navy Yard, the cruiser Montgomery and two destroyers were in reserve, and a submarine was fitting out. Here also were stationed the ships of the Atlantic Reserve Fleet, consisting of the predreadnought battleships Idaho, Maine, Missouri, Alabama, Illinois, Kearsarge, Kentucky, Wisconsin, Indiana, Iowa, and Massachusetts, the armored cruiser Tennessee, the cruiser Salem, and the repair ship Panther.
Five torpedo boats were stationed at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, and two converted yachts at Washington. At the Norfolk Navy Yard in Virginia, the predreadnought battleship Vermont was undergoing repairs and the monitor Tallahassee was being used for ordnance experiments. Off Cape Hatteras, the dreadnought battleship Michigan was proceeding south to join the other ships of the second division at Guantanamo.
Charleston, South Carolina was the regular base for the torpedo boats and destroyers in reserve, but only five of the former and three of the latter, together with one submarine, were there on February 12, 1914. The other six reserve destroyers were engaged in their annual practice cruise off the coast of Florida, manned by half-crews.
At Key West, three new destroyers, recently placed in commission, were in shakedown trials and undergoing torpedo practice prior to joining the Atlantic Fleet. In Pensacola Bay, the predreadnought battleship Mississippi was being used in experimental aeronautic work. At New Orleans, the monitor Tonapah and the second submarine group of five vessels were engaged in the annual practice cruise.
Off the north coast of Cuba, the transports Prairie and Hancock were returning with two regiments of Marines from a month of “advance base” maneuvers on the island of Culebra, just east of Puerto Rico, another American possession acquired in the war with Spain.
To the south of Cuba, all the ships of the Atlantic Fleet, except those in Mexican and Haitian waters, were engaged in fleet and division drills, torpedo and target practice, boat drills, etc. At Guantanamo were the following ships: predreadnought battleships Louisiana, Kansas, and New Hampshire, cruiser Birmingham, one gunboat, and twelve torpedo boat destroyers. To the west, near Gua-canayabo Bay, Cuba, were the rest of the ships of the Atlantic Fleet, engaged in similar practice—the dreadnought battleships Wyoming, Delaware, Florida, and Utah, plus six torpedo-boat destroyers and one destroyer tender.
At Santo Domingo, on the island of Hispaniola, lay the gunboat Petrel. Off the coast of Haiti were the battleship South Carolina, the armored cruiser Montana, the gunboat Nashville, the mine-layer San Francisco, and the surveying ship Eagle. Both the Montana and the San Francisco had been “hurried to Haiti on the outbreak of the revolution there.”
Off the coast of Honduras, the auxiliary Hannibal was engaged in hydrographic surveying; and at Cristobal, the Atlantic end of the soon-to-be-opened Panama Canal, were five submarines and their mother ship, the submarine tender Severn.
And finally, on the east coast of Mexico “performing an obvious duty” were: at Tampico, predreadnought battleships Rhode Island, Georgia, Nebraska, and Virginia, cruiser Des Moines, and one gunboat; and at Vera Cruz, predreadnought battleships Connecticut, Ohio, and Minnesota, and the cruiser Chester.
In short, the single greatest concentration of United States naval power in the late winter of 1913–1914 was either off the east coast of Mexico or within easy reach of it. The ships were there because Woodrow Wilson wanted them there. Why he wanted them there, and the inherent instability their presence created in the area, would soon teach Franklin Roosevelt an important lesson in the need to maintain close control of naval vessels in foreign waters, the difficulty in doing so, and the limits of presidential hubris.