Looking back, the Japanese did us a favor at Pearl. The battleships they damaged would not have been nearly as useful as the Admirals thought, the planes they destroyed on the ground were obsolete and could not have matched the Zero.
The sailors and pilots mostly survived Pearl, and went after the Japs in more capable replacements.
There were also some significant surface actions in the Pacific that were almost entirely between gunships where a little bit more on the American side would have helped. The two Battles of the Java Sea, night actions at Guadalcanal, and several engagements in the Battle of Leyte Gulf come to mind.
In addition to the ships lost, the deaths of over two thousand experienced sailors at Pearl Harbor was a major blow.
Moreover, if properly handled, even the obsolete American fighter aircraft of the early years could do damage as bomb and torpedo trucks. And as Claire Chennault proved in China, the way to use obsolete fighters against Japanese Zeros and their kin was by dropping from altitude, hitting them with a single close range firing pass, and then diving away without a dogfight. Before Pearl Harbor, Chennault sent an assessment to the War Department saying as much but it was foolishly ignored.
In the event, US pilots developed the so-called Thatch Weave tactic for fending off Zeros in obsolete fighters with minimally trained pilots. It worked well enough. An veteran dive bomber pilot also told me of how he survived attacks against his unescorted dive bomber by Zeros.
Bill C. trained his tail gunner to watch for a Zero closing range, levelling off, and taking aim. Then, with that as a warning, he would chop the power, skid, and side slip his aircraft to throw the Zero off, sometime even setting up a shot for his tail gunner. Bill never lost a tail gunner or an aircraft.
As it was, the value of the Navy's new Grumman fighters was a legendary sturdiness that permitted novice fighter pilots to make mistakes but survive. Heavy redundant framing; large, durable air cooled radial engines burning high octane fuel; armor plating to protect the pilot; and self-sealing gas tanks brought many American pilots home. Japanese aircraft without them were shot down in increasing numbers as American pilots survived and became more skilled in combat.