True, taking out the fuel would have been a good move. It would seem the Japanese only tended to focus on direct military targets, objectives and this worked to be VERY shortsigted. In reality the fuel was of probably more importance than the Battleships that they sank. An example of this mindset was in the engineering troops that the Japanese fielded as opposed to the US. In the Japanese army/navy the engineering troops were essentially slave labor troops that were deemed unfit for "real" military service. In the US, the Engineering corps were made up of professional engineers, overseeing trained construction troops. If I'm not wrong, the engineering units got one of the top picks on draftees. The difference this made was that the Japanese were barely able build a crude fighter strip after Months of work as opposed to the Army / Navy being able to get a fighter strip up in about a week and then expand that to a field able to handle bombers.
This aside, my point was that after Pearl Harbor, all the Japanese could do is prolong the inevitable. After Pearl, the US would have settled for nothing short of unconditional surrender. It would definately been a tougher go but the end would have been the same. Yes the Japanese would have had more time to prepare but you then have to remember that they had 2-3 years to prepare defences in the Islands near the home Islands as it was. Here is what I'm talking about, the US and Japan started roughly equal in carrier strength. By 1944 the Japanese had built and launched the following (and I'll include the Shinano)
1 Fleet Carrier (shinano)
5 Medium Carriers (Junyo, Hiyo, Taiho, Unryu, Amagi (1945), Katsuragi (1945))
5 Escort Carriers
The US on the other hand had built and launched:
12 Essex class Fleet Carriers
9 Independence Class Light Carriers
40+ Various Class Escort Carriers
So, even assuming that we lost all our carriers and they none in 1942 (REAL unlikely...) by 1944, the USN is still able to way outnumber the IJN.
Realistically the Japanese could not have expanded their perimeter much larger than they did. The lacked the manpower or logistical support to capture Pearl Harbor or Australia. Now they could have possibly capured Samoa and cut Australia off.
thanks,
Kevin
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