The first sentence of the second paragraph is about thee “public perception” of what happened on 12/7/41 was wrong. What public perception? The American people knew that Pearl Harbor and Hawaii were attacked by the Japanese and that the U.S.S. Arizona was lost. They did not know that 4 battleships were sunk and more than 2,000 Americans were killed. Why would the Navy share that information with the enemy?
I thought that the articles was referring to the relatively light damage to the port itself. If the Japanese had lauched a third wave to attack the oil storage and drydocks the fleet would have had to pull back to San Fancisco or San Diego.
We didn’t have the treasonous Press that we do now. Today they would make sure the world knew everything.