Walt wrote:
History has shown us that this oversight ( or mistake whatever) was very contributory to what was to become their ruin in short order. These are also facts that to a military planner are all very obvious.
I do not think so. The Japanese attack was gambling. They risked everything by attacking, because their industrial base was clearly inferior. A long war Japan could not won - does not matter, what they would have hit in Pearl Harbor. There only chance was a decisive blow against the USN fleet, which would enable them to conquer the areas they aimed for - and would forced the USA to peace. The succeeded in destroying most of the USN battlefleet and to conquer most of those islands. But the reaction of the Allies to this disastrous defeat was not that the Allies sued for peace - as the Russians did in 1905 - but a counter attack using the industrial base of the USA to produce a dramatic quantitative superiority.
The effect of the destruction of the fuel farms and submarine base would clearly less impressive than the sunken battlefleet - also they would have been repaired in time for the counter attack. Actually they would have been much easier and cheaper to repair than the sunken battleships.
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