When US and Japanese sailors met before the Pacific War

Did American and Japanese sailors ever get along before the Second World War?

Yes; naval visits and diplomacy brought them together, notably when Japan received the Great White Fleet.

The prewar relationship cannot be understood only through the conflict that followed. American and Japanese sailors did meet during port visits and other diplomatic contacts. Japan's reception of the Great White Fleet is the most prominent example of a period when professional and ceremonial ties remained possible. These encounters did not erase strategic rivalry, but they show that the road to the Pacific War was not an unbroken history of naval hostility.