Is That Legal?

Your last two sentences probably sum it up pretty well. It's hard to explain or even rationalize the lack of preparedness of US forces at Pearl after that. Is the fact that carriers were not at Pearl just luck, as most people assume today?

The most astonishing for me was to know that the closest ally, Churchill, knew about the preparations of the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor. And didn't inform the US government about it.

He just needed America to enter into the war...

Although not a strategic surprise, the fact that the initial attack occured at Pearl Harbor rather than someplace else like the Philippines, Malaysia or Borneo (as mentioned in the teletype you show) was definitely a tactical surprise. And putting the words "sneak attack" in quotation marks is simply wrong as it was, quite literally, a sneak attack. There was no prior announcement of hostilities and even Japan's intended fig leaf of ending negotiations just prior to the strike didn't happen.

Pearl Harbor myths. Sigh. God knows what people will say about 9/11 in 60 years.

(1) The absence of the carriers proves nothing. The Japanese were about to demonstrate the utility of carriers; until 12/7/41, that was not something FDR or top Navy brass could've been expected to appreciate. No way would they have left the battleships at dock.

(2) There is no proof that Churchill knew the Japanese would attack Pearl on 12/7 or any other date. Also, given his already-close relationship to FDR, it's inconceivable that he wouldn't have shared the intel to let the Americans ambush the Japanese fleet, which of course would have been a menace to British possessions as well (a Pearl attack was inseparable from Japan's declaring war on the UK as well).

And of course, the obvious point: Japan's attacking the U.S. was the *last* thing FDR (or Churchill) wanted, b/c it would've risked committing the U.S. to a Pacific war rather than to the defeat of Hitler. Only Hitler's foolish declaration of war against the U.S. solved that problem.

This warning is crystal clear-- the Japanese were expected to attack at a number of places, but definitely not expected to attack Pearl Harbor since that's not on the list. How anyone can read this and assume that an attack on Pearl should have been expected is beyond me.

What were the tasks assigned to the Pacific Fleet in War Plan 46X? I assure you they could not have included "sortie to prevent losses due to air attack on Pearl Harbor."