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Further, instead of focusing on the real threats at Pearl Harbor like the submarines and carriers, he focused on the antiquated battleships. While the battleships were out on maneuvers during the attack, the Japanese had spies that could have let them pin point when they would be in port. They also missed the oil tanks which could have put the US Navy out of action for months.

Let's keep this in some perspective. An attack on Pearl Harbor was not a novel idea. American war games had simulated this several times in the 1930 with attacks by carriers. There were also simulated raids on the Panama Canal.

There was a hope by the Japanese that the carriers would be in port on 12/7/41. They fortunately were not. But the battleships and the remainder of the fleet were in port that morning.

I don't think it's fair to say he focused on the battleships. At the time the battleship was still viewed by most naval experts as the "queen" of the sea. The carrier had not been fully proven to be the capital ship it later became. There were however, some believers in the carrier and Yamamato was one.

Recall that the main naval doctrine at the time, on both sides of the Pacific, was the Mahan doctrine. It called for a "decisive" battle that would settle the war. American plans at the time were to respond to a Japanese attack by sailing across the Pacific and then engage them.

Not launching a third strike to target the oil tanks and drydocks and other such installations, in hindsight does prove to be a strategic mistake. But this decision was made by Nagumo; not Yamamato.

Nagumo was concerned about the whereabouts of the American carriers which were still unknown during the attack on Pearl Harbor. The second raid also incurred more casualties than the first as American resistance become more organized. Would a third raid cost the Japanese more planes? Would the fleet be discovered?

Nagumo's primary mission was accomplished and that was the destruction of the primary battle fleet of the United States. Nagumo felt the mission was accomplished and it was his responsibility to return the fleet intact.

You raise a lot of valid points.

...but one would think if Yamamoto truly understood the importance of carriers, he would have made sure that the carriers were in port during the attack. The Japanese certainly seemed to have the intelligence assets in Hawaii to do this.

He staked his reputation on Pearl Harbor to the point of threatening to resign if the attack did not proceed when the general staff opposed it so he had the pull to make the carriers the top priority.

It just seems like when you look at his complete record that Yamamoto was almost as obsessed with the "final climactic battle" as the rest of the Japanese high command and that maybe he was not as much of an aircraft carrier visionary as he is purported to be.

Excerpts from: “Reflections on Pearl Harbor ” by Admiral Chester Nimitz.

“Sunday, December 7th, 1941—Admiral Chester Nimitz was attending a concert in Washington, D.C. He was paged and told there was a phone call for him. When he answered the phone, it was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He told Admiral Nimitz about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and that he (Nimitz) would now be the Commander of the Pacific Fleet.

Admiral Nimitz flew to Hawaii to assume command of the Pacific Fleet. He landed at Pearl Harbor on Christmas Eve, 1941. There was such a spirit of despair, dejection and defeat—you would have thought the Japanese had already won the war.

On Christmas Day, 1941, Adm. Nimitz was given a boat tour of the destruction wrought on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. Big sunken battleships and navy vessels cluttered the waters everywhere you looked.

As the boat returned to dock, the young helmsman of the boat asked, “Well Admiral sir, what do you think after seeing all this destruction?”

Admiral Nimitz’s reply shocked everyone within the sound of his voice.

Admiral Nimitz said, “The Japanese made three of the biggest mistakes an attack force could ever make, or God was taking care of America. Which do you think it was?”

Shocked and surprised, the young helmsman asked, “What do you mean by saying the Japanese made the three biggest mistakes an attack force ever made?”

Nimitz explained:

Mistake number one: the Japanese attacked on Sunday morning. Nine out of every ten crewmen of those ships were ashore on leave. If those same ships had been lured to sea and been sunk—we would have lost 38,000 men instead of 3,800.

Mistake number two: when the Japanese saw all those battleships lined in a row, they got so carried away sinking those battleships, they never once bombed our dry docks opposite those ships. If they had destroyed our dry docks, we would have had to tow every one of those ships to America to be repaired. As it is now, the ships are in shallow water and can be raised. One tug can pull them over to the dry docks, and we can have them repaired and at sea by the time we could have towed them to America . And I already have crews ashore anxious to man those ships.

Mistake number three: Every drop of fuel in the Pacific theater of war is on top of the ground in storage tanks five miles away over that hill. One attack plane could have strafed those tanks and destroyed our fuel supply.

That’s why I say the Japanese made three of the biggest mistakes an attack force could make, or God was taking care of America.”