The American 'Great White Fleet' arrives in Australia - Uncle Sam meeting a Kangaroo. On 20 August 1908 well over half a million Sydneysiders turned out to watch the arrival of the Fleet. President Roosevelt had initiated the deployment of the US Atlantic Fleet to the Pacific - the first such movement of great battleships - to test his Navys professionalism, arouse popular interest in and enthusiasm for the navy, and demonstrate that the United States had arrived as a world power. Date: 1908