However, assume that the fleet had been moved out of Pearl Harbor before the attack and was in deep water off the Hawaiian Islands when attacked. Assuming the same sort of losses to the fleet at anchor occurred while at sea, the loss in life would have been staggering, much more than actually resulted. Additionally, those vessels that were salvaged and used later during the war would have been gone forever, unreachable.
In the end, I'm of the opinion that, regardless of whether the authorities knew of the attack or not, if the strike was going to happen, it was better that the fleet was anchored in Pearl Harbor.
I know that some will say that, with warning, the fleet could have fought off the attack, but these were WWI era battleships, not the anti-aircraft powerhouses that followed later in the war, with no fleet air cover, and the land-based planes were definitely inferior to the Japanese aircraft. Sure, we might have shot down a few more aircraft, but the fleet losses would have been much much worse.
The USS Lurline copied Japanese text that indicated an attack was imminent.
We knew an attack was imminent on 9/11, but didn't know exactly where. The same can be said for December 7th, 1941.
"If Pease ever submitted a report on the Lurline's locating Japanese warships north of Hawaii by RDF, it has disappeared. So has the Lurline's original radio log. On December 10, the liner returned to San Francisco and Lieutenant Commander Preston Allen boarded the ship and confiscated the radio log. Allen, a member of the Twelfth Naval District intelligence unit, took the log containing the details of Grogan's interceptions to his District office. It has never been seen since. Grogan's account, quoted in this book [Day of Deceit] is based on a reconstruction of the missing log that he prepared for Matson Lines after Allen took possession of the log." http://www.pearlharboronline.com/index.htm
The Roosevelt Administration and the Churchill Government were fully aware that Japan had already launched expeditionary forces to attack British Singapore and British Hong Kong in the opening Japanese attacks of what the Japanese describe as the Pacific War. American air patrols monitoring the Japanese air bases on Formosa were attempting to determine whether or not any additional expeditionary forces were underway to the Philippines. They were also attempting to get confirmation or denial that the Japanese carrier strike task forces were still anchored in the Japanese Inland Sea. The Japanese radio traffic deception and the failures in ABD (American, British, Dutch) reconnaissance efforts resulted in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor remaining undiscovered.
Unfortunately, the Army and Navy commanders in the Department of Hawaii failed to interpret and respond appropriately to the standing war warning messages issued the preceding weeks. As a consequence, the Hawaiian forces were ill prepared to receive the Japanese naval air attacks.
It is also seldom appreciated the extent to which the Japanese attack, damaging as it was in human life and in combat aircraft, failed to inflict sufficient damage to the naval warships and facilities in Pearl Harbor necessary to seriously cripple the U.S. Pacific Fleet. The so-called Old Battleships of WWI Dreadnought vintage though modernized were too slow and too poorly armed with anti-aircraft gunnery to serve as escorts to the fast fleet aircraft carrier task forces used throughout WWII. Those Old Battleships who were not at Pearl Harbor were limited in use to serving as cargo and troopship convoy escorts for the most part in the first two years of the war. Their use in offensive operations in those early months was limited to such amphibious task force bombardment support as the invasions of Attu and Kiska islands in Alaska and Operation Torch in the North African operations. Their principal value was in the later part of the war in their role as amphibious task force bombardment support with improved anti-aircraft batteries.
The Colorado class was post WWI (West Virginia, Maryland) While the California was post WWI, it was of the WWI era Tennessee class. Pennsylvania was of the pre-WWI Pennsylvania class. Nevada was pre-WWI Nevada class.
Pre-Washington Treaty might be more precise for all of the BBs at Pearl.
The first Post-treaty BB was the North Carolina, and she wasn't ready for action until mid-1942.
Having to hunt for scattered moving ships would have chewed up fuel and reduced accuracy significantly. Given the loss of life from theArizona alone, I think scattering would have been better.