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At Pearl Harbor time, the US had 3 carriers, two of which were converted heavy cruisers. As noted the future production schedule projected lots more rapidly. Both converted cruisers, the Lexington and the Saratoga, were due to be in Pearl on the day of the attack, but both had stopped related to repairs to the Saratoga, as I noted above. The Yorktown, a built to be a carrier, was on a cruise near the Phillipines.
(Some of you may know that some ships, when lost, were replaced with new ships with the same name. THIS Yorktown will not make it out of the south Pacific, a second Yorktown will be lost at Midway, and a third will finish the war on duty off Okinawa.)
For Japan, the Phillipines pointed like a knife at SE Asia. No conquest there would be safe if those islands can be converted to Allied bases. Everyone in power in the US knew or should have known an attack was coming once we refused to negotiate with Japan about the status of the Phillipines in the general period of 1935.
The attack on Pearl was intended to cripple the American fleet to prevent their interference or counterattack in the Phillipines.
Nonetheless, few, if any, Americans expected the first attack to be on Hawaii, whatever clues existed for post hoc analysis. Interestingly, many US commanders, including McArthur, were so sure that would not happen that, when told it did, they refused to believe it. Therefore when Manilla on the island of Luzon was attacked on the 10th, that attack was effectively a "surprise" also, with the planes and ships arranged as at Pearl to prevent sabotage, not collateral damage. This deployment had disastrous consequences, but reinforces the argument that a Japanese attack at that exact time was a surprise, in fact.
(Some of you may know that some ships, when lost, were replaced with new ships with the same name. THIS Yorktown will not make it out of the south Pacific, a second Yorktown will be lost at Midway, and a third will finish the war on duty off Okinawa.)
For Japan, the Phillipines pointed like a knife at SE Asia. No conquest there would be safe if those islands can be converted to Allied bases. Everyone in power in the US knew or should have known an attack was coming once we refused to negotiate with Japan about the status of the Phillipines in the general period of 1935.
The attack on Pearl was intended to cripple the American fleet to prevent their interference or counterattack in the Phillipines.
Nonetheless, few, if any, Americans expected the first attack to be on Hawaii, whatever clues existed for post hoc analysis. Interestingly, many US commanders, including McArthur, were so sure that would not happen that, when told it did, they refused to believe it. Therefore when Manilla on the island of Luzon was attacked on the 10th, that attack was effectively a "surprise" also, with the planes and ships arranged as at Pearl to prevent sabotage, not collateral damage. This deployment had disastrous consequences, but reinforces the argument that a Japanese attack at that exact time was a surprise, in fact.
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