[ex-Texan]

I met some guys who were buddies with my father. One flew fighters against the Japanese in the Pacific. We was an Ace. The other guys fought them hand to hand in jungles. Every body I talked to said they were fanatical to the death. I know a man who is famous today in Japan. He was educated at San Francisco State and Boalt Hall Law School at Berkeley. After graduating from law school, he went back home to fight for Japan. His entire family was Christian. His father was the first elected Premier of Japan in 1947. He invaded us again with the Datsun automobile and that invasion was a huge success.

Japan would have created havoc on the West Coast.

[Poohbah]

Japan would have created havoc on the West Coast.

Actually, they wouldn't--the IJN's reach just couldn't get all the way across the Pacific, and they could only reach Hawaii with a marginal force. An invasion of Hawaii was out of the question because of their sealift shortfall.

[Petronski]

For lack of the carriers, we'd be speaking Japanese and German? You've GOT to be kidding.

Japanese strategy was to shock us and throw us off balance long enough to accomplish their strategic goals in the Pacific and present us with a fait accompli that we'd not have the political will to dislodge. That strategy was NEVER going to work, and catching the carriers at Pearl would not have changed that, for one important reason: nothing the Japanese did in the Pacific was going to delay the readiness of the Bomb. You're talking about adding a year, at most, to the conflict in the Pacific, but even that is an outlying estimate.