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Your uncle's memory seems to be slightly flawed. The USS Enterprise left Pearl Harbor 11/28/41 with a load of aircraft for the Wake Island garrison. It was returning to Pearl on 12/7/41. The USS Lexington departed Pearl with a load of aircraft to reinforce the Midway garrison on 12/5/41. The third aircraft carrier in the Pacific was the USS Saratoga, which had just completed maintenance work in Bremerton Washington and was in transit to San Diego, where it picked additional aircraft earmarked for the Wake Island garrison. So there were only two carriers near Pearl Harbor on 12/7/41 and both were being used in aircraft deliveries, not sneaking out of Pearl to keep them safe.

The other four American carriers were in the Atlantic.

USS Lexington was close enough to the Japanese strike force so that it might conceivably on a longshot have spotted or been spotted by the Japanese, but neither force was launching recon patrols. The Lexington's deck was full of Marine aircraft that could fly off, but whose flight crews were not trained to land on carriers. The Japanese weren't flying recon because they were trying to sneak up on Pearl Harbor, and any American warship or merchantmen spotting and reporting a Japanese aircraft in the middle of nowhere would have tipped their hand.

If your uncle is still with us, pass along my thanks for his service to our country.

So there were only two carriers near Pearl Harbor on 12/7/41 and both were being used in aircraft deliveries, not sneaking out of Pearl to keep them safe.

Enterprise was due back in Pearl the afternoon of 12/6. Halsey was trying to get his boys their Saturday liberty in Honolulu, but they ended up delayed by weather. She arrived in the evening of 12/7, was refueled and put to sea again to hunt the Japanese task force. Fortunately, Halsey took her in the wrong direction. Yelland with the Nimitz could take Kido Butai in a walk-over. Halsey in Enterprise, not so much.

Had Enterprise been in port as scheduled on 12/7 she would have been moored on "Carrier Row" on the other side of Ford Island from the Battleships, would have been attacked en masse and would probably have capsized from multiple torpedo hits and been a total loss. The US carriers were the primary target for the Japanese pilots; that's why the old USS Utah (which was sitting in a carrier berth) got hit so badly - there wasn't enough time for the Japanese to change their attack plans once they learned the CVs weren't around.