The Essex (CV-9)was commissioned on 31 December 1942; the Yorktown (CV-10) on 15 April 1943; the Intrepid (CV-11) on 16 August 1943; the Hornet (CV-12) on 20 November 1943; and the Franklin (CV-13) on 31 January 1944. If our carriers had been wiped out at Pearl, you can bet these dates would have been moved up and the carriers put into service even earlier.
While the mobilization of our war machine did take time, the production rate was incredible once up and running. If you want to hypothesize that our Pacific fleet carriers were wiped out, I can certainly with some factual basis believe that we would have accelerated production of new carriers even more. It is just a matter of priorities.
Now you're just talking stupid.
The Yorktown keel was laid the first of Dec. 1941 the very fact that she was commissioned 1 year later is a miracle in itself.
As a naval officer, you should know, you don't take a brand new ship (and crew) just throw them out there. That's what sea trials are for. To find the bugs in ships and repair them, BEFORE putting out, then finding out your ship can't do what you need it to do.
Virtually every ship comes out of drydock with some problems.
Frances De Gaulle through a propeller during her sea trials. The Queen Mary 2 threw a bow thruster door.
You don't throw a green crew together and expect them to fight well together. When a ship is up and running, to add new crew members is one thing, but to go from zero?! PLEASE! Like I said, The Essex was commissioned on April '43. She didn't ENTER SERVICE until Aug. of '43 Her construction and sea trials were already fast tracked. Now your saying they could have moved it up even faster. You laud, in one breath, the MIRACLE of what the US accomplished in 3-1/2 years, then in the next say that the US was sandbagging. That we weren't giving it our all.
There ISN'T ONE Essex class carrier that went from ORDERING to Keel laid in less than 12 months.
There isn't one that went from laid to launch in less than 12 months.
None went from launch to commission in less than 4 months.
And none had sea trials less than 3 months.
To say we would have moved ANY of those time lines up is foolishness.
You don't just cut the top off a cruiser today and weld a flight deck on tomorrow. There is the whole design and ordering process. Then the building process. Even if we cram all that into 12 months, there is still the shake down.
You're sounding like a liberal with your flights of fantasy. Time to get back to reality.