If one destroyer can be a fleet. 
The visit it commemmorated had a bigger fleet.
US warship marks Great White Fleet’s arrival
Posted Wed Aug 20, 2008 11:34am AEST
Updated Wed Aug 20, 2008 11:54am AESTThe US fleet was the inspiration for the formation of Australia’s own navy just three years later. (ABC)
A single US warship has arrived in Sydney to commemorate an event a century ago that attracted no fewer than a million Australian onlookers and marked a defining moment for the young Australian Federation.
The destroyer, USS John McCain, and its almost 300 officers and crew are marking the day 100 years ago when the United States’ Great White Fleet sailed into Sydney Harbour, then on to Melbourne in Victoria and Albany in Western Australia.
The 16 coal-burning US battleships, a few more supply ships and 14,000 sailors drew a crowd of staggering proportions in 1908.
“There were about 600,000 in Sydney and probably about 350 to 400,000 in Melbourne,” says Paul Hundley from the Australian Maritime Museum.
“It was about 20 per cent of the Australian population at the time.”
Today in Sydney, two Australian navy ships, the frigate HMAS Darwin and the tanker HMAS Sirius, are leading the welcome for USS John McCain, named after the US presidential hopeful’s father and grandfather, the only father-son admirals in US navy history.
The Great White Fleet was so-called because all the vessels were painted white. Its voyage lasted 14 months, covered 70,000 kilometres and made 20 port calls on six continents.
As significant for Australia as that was, the visit of the fleet also marked a shift in Australian focus.
Then Australian prime minister Alfred Deakin had gone behind British backs and invited then president Theodore Roosevelt’s Atlantic Battle Fleet to stop in Australia on its way around the world.
Mr Deakin’s fear of the Japanese was a major factor in inviting the fleet to visit.
The US fleet was the inspiration for the formation of Australia’s own navy just three years later and the ties still link the two countries.
The visit also also sprouted commemorative postcards and other memorabilia, including paintings by Rupert Bunny and Julian Ashton.
But why was the fleet white at the time?
“People think they were painted especially for this tour but in fact all American naval vessels were painted white in peacetime and only switched to grey in times of war,” Mr Hundley said.
Apart from hospital ships and the Coast Guard, US warships have been grey ever since.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/08/20/2341089.htm