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By Associated Press
SANTA MONICA, April 25 — Sailing away into a summer haze that hung over the bay of Santa Monica, the 16 battleships of the Atlantic Fleet steamed slowly past Point Dume shortly after 9 o’clock this morning with a hundred thousand people assembled along the shores to extend them a reluctant farewell.
No spectacle so superb has ever been witnessed off the coast of Southern California unless it was the arrival of the same ships a week ago . . . .
Since noon yesterday every available [street]car of the Los Angeles-Pacific system was operated without interruption, and for 18 hours a stream of people poured into Venice, Ocean Park and Santa Monica . . . .
Days ago the quest for accommodations for last night had been abandoned as hopeless, and . . . men, women and children slept . . . on the beach or in the canyons just outside Santa Monica.
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Others passed the night on the floors of offices in the City Hall, and hundreds who had gathered at Venice whiled away the hour before daylight by dancing . . . .
. . . many of the sleepless but eager sightseers, finding that the restaurants were unable to provide breakfast for half the people who waited in lines . . ., cheerfully sacrificed the meal for early choice of a view somewhere along the shore. . . .
As daylight broke, the waiters on the shore were able to make out the four ships of the third division, the Maine lying farthest off shore and the others close to the end of the pier.
. . . the four battleships in the harbor weighed anchor and steamed away in the direction of Redondo, where the fourth division lay and where the 16 battleships would again unite for departure. . . .
Men and women climbed to roof tops, mounted into the branches of trees . . . .
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Conspicuous in the great gathering were the faded blue uniforms and the battered slouch hats of the veterans of the Soldiers’ home [in Sawtelle], to whom the visit of the fleet has been a most notable occasion. . . .
When the buff of the Connecticut’s superstructure showed, the fog appeared to lift, and one by one the battleships crept out of the misty background . . . .
It was 15 minutes before the spectators could count the full 16, and by that time the Connecticut was drawing abreast of Venice, about four miles from shore.
Here occurred the one maneuver of the reunited fleet:
Opposite Venice the Connecticut turned sharply inshore, breaking the formation that showed perfectly even at this remote distance.
Reaching the same spot, the Kansas followed, and one by one, like a file of well-drilled infantrymen, the big warships
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turned their curving stems toward the beach . . . .
A mile and a half from the beach, the Connecticut wheeled again, pointing her nose northward and parallel with the beach, where the people were waving flags and where the rusty guns mounted on the Venice pier had begun to boom out a salute of welcome. . . .
Viewed from the Santa Monica cliffs, the scene was one never to be forgotten. . . .
It was a few minutes after 9 when the Minnesota, . . . last in the column of ships, faded from view.
The few launches and sailboats that had followed the warships turned as they disappeared, and the crowd, hurrying back from the beaches, the hills and the cliffs, hurried to the lines of waiting [street]cars that carried them back to Los Angeles.
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