a. If Japan attacks the Philippines, takes Guam, or attacks Wake Island, we are at war, period. Attacking American bases, killing American servicemen, and landing troops on our territory is not an incident, it is an overt act of war. Even the most die-hard Isolationist could not ignore that.
b. Name of ship please? Also, it is not exactly a secret that the British were stretched thin in late 1941. That is one of the reasons Japan attacked. If Britain is not at war in Europe, then a Japanese attack on Malaya and the Dutch East Indies is suicide.
c. Cruisers aren’t capital ships. The Asiatic Fleet had two cruisers assigned, USS Houston (CA-30) and USS Marblehead (CL-12), a third cruiser USS Boise (CL-47) was present near Cebu having escorted a convoy of reinforcements from the Hawaii to the Philippines and came under operational control of CinCAF. A fourth cruiser USS Pensacola (CA-24) was en route with another convoy of Army reinforcements to The Philippines on December 7th 1941..
Japan knew that the Asiatic Fleet was weak, so did we. That’s why Hart had the option to withdrawal South to the DEI when he wanted to, so he could link up with the Royal Netherlands Navy, Royal Navy and Royal Australian Navy forces to combined their efforts.
d. So did everyone else, and the Japanese knew it was only temporary. The Two-Ocean Navy Act had a lot of Destroyers for the Pacific Fleet included as part of the build-up.
FDR had no reason to set up an attack on Pearl Harbor, since Japan was clearly bent on war anyway.
Why did not FDR demand from Congress a declaration of war? Was it because Stark testifies and says US was the aggressor? Cannot have that? Just cannot have that - who attacked, where, and when, could not have any ambiguity - that "unless attacked" wordsmithing.
Name of the ship - AUTOMEDON. See Chapman's The Price of Admiralty. The German office Wenneker did the translation; the Japanese awarded him a highly-prized sword.
Another oddity from Hart's world - those three goats of Kemp Tolley. A direct order for FDR himself, whose purpose was? Recall the Dutch rang the bell, FDR's having committed to armed support to colonial powers Britain and Dutch, which Congress knew not, ... looking for an incident.
Another oddity, ye olde gunboat Panay, circa 1937 - no declaration of war there? Why was that?