Scene on the water front, Los Angeles, Cal.

BOY:  Mama, what ships are those in the bay?

MOTHER:  My son those are Bob Evan's fighting ships from Hampton Roads.  They can whip anything on earth.

The Hotel Long Beach decorated for the fleet's arrival.  Above the fleet on the horizon.

"Five miles long, beginnnig with the resplendent flagship Connecticut, off Dead Man's Island, in the San Pedro breakwater, and extending to the scintillating battleship Kentucky, anchored almost opposite the Long Beach pier, but a mile distant, the great armada loomed up against the ebon horizon like a fleet of fire; and then suddenly, their powerful searchlights burst forth with penetrating splendor, searching the heavens till the sky was as a crazy quilt of light and shadow patches - and ever shifting constellation of radiance stretching from the farmost mountains of the mainland to the cerulean peaks of Catalina Island." (from With the American Fleet)

At right:  The Fleet's arrival at Long Beach Pier and Auditorium