If US carriers had been at Pearl Harbor there may have been no Midway. It could have taken us much longer to have that fight. I know things were primitive in 1941, but I just don’t understand why Japanese spies on Ohau (there were many) couldn’t find a way to tell their fleet that the carriers weren’t in Port.
The whole battle of Midway hinged on maybe 10 minutes. The Japanese fighters which were flown by some of the best pilots in the world, were drawn down to water level to dispense with the torpedo bombers. If the had known just how bad our torpedoes were at that time they may have just sent a few fighters after them.
Anyway just at that time the dive bombers free of Japanese fighters sank 3 fleet carrier or was it 4? We got the last one the next day.
It is amazing. After enlisting in the Army Air Corps (not corpse) my Dad arrived in Pearl Harbor a little over a month after the Japanese attack. He told me that the ships were still smoking from fires even then.