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The fleet carrier task forces were absent, because they were engaged in pre-war operations. These operations included ferrying combat aircraft to Wake Island. One of the task forces was engaged in training carrier air units nearby the Hawaiian Islands, and sent the naval carrier aircraft to Pearl Harbor where they unexpectedly ran into the Japanese air attacks.

The battleship divisions happened to be in port because the war warnings during the previous weeks kept them out of port and made it necessary to perform some replenishment, training, inspections for war duty, and other tasks they were unable to accomplish while at sea

Sort of. Operational procedure was to keep half the fleet at sea, so long as the carriers were present to provide scouting and air cover.

The decision to send the carriers away from Pearl Harbor (Saratoga on the West Coast for refit, Lexington and Enterprise on ferry runs to Wake and Midway with Marine Corps fighters) meant that the Battleships were pulled back into Pearl where they would be protected by the shallowness of the harbor and the Army's fighters.