DECEMBER 16, 1907

THE GREAT WHITE FLEET

Steams out of Hampton Roads, Virginia

Where Naval History was made once before on March 8, 1862, when the first two Iron Clad vessels battled during the Civil War, the Union Ship the Monitor and the Confederate Ship the Merrimac. After that battle all wooden navy vessels became destined to the scrap heap.

45 years later, 16 of America's steel battle ships would attempt a voyage that no other Navy in the world had attempted: to travel around the world.

On board is Midshipman H. Kent Hewitt of Hackensack New Jersey, who has just graduated from the Naval Academy.

For most people, to be part of such an event would be enough for a lifetime of memories, but for H. Kent Hewitt, it was only the beginning of his voyage through life.

Written by:
Bob Meli
2008

Through my research, I contacted the Library of Congress and requested the letters which H. Kent Hewitt sent home to his parents while he was a midshipman, and then promoted to ensign while on the voyage around the
world with the Great White Fleet from December 16, 1907 to February 22, 1909.
To follow are those letters which he sent home from his voyage.
H. Kent Hewitt's letters start on January 21, 1908 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and end on January 5, 1909 in Cairo, Egypt. I don't know why there are no more letters while traveling through the Mediterranean and across the Atlantic home. They could be lost, or he stopped writing because he felt he would be home before they arrived. There is such a lesson of learning here by what he has left us in these letters I would highly recommend them as a teaching tool in explaining ordinary geography and turn of the century history. Two letters I thought would be of interest to all are one he sent home to Hackensack from Honolulu, Hawaii on July 22, 1908, where he states, “Yesterday morning I had to go on an excursion to Pearl Harbor, where the big naval station is to be. We saw its possibilities but that was all. There was nothing else to see.” The second letter, he wrote from Amoy, China on October 27, 1908, where he states, “Well the visit to Japan is over--the most interesting step of the whole cruise. Don't talk any more to me about any American–Japanese war scare! No one who had been there would believe that. Mr. Gardiner, of whom I will tell you later, has lived here for thirty years and says that the idea is ridiculous.”

Kent Street in Hackensack is the geographic location he gives in his autobiography of where his house was located. His mother's maiden name was Kent and the house area at the time was always called the Kent place. This is where he grew up until he was around 12, when he moved up town across the street from Holy Trinity Church on 61 Maple Street when his parents got their own place.

Written by:
Bob Meli
2008