Maul, Maul, you seem so intent on mauling history.

First, let's go to the Bismarck. Your comment that the Bismarck was not helped by being at sea reveals your ignorance of what happened. So let me instruct you. Bismarck was not sent to sea in time of emergency. She was sent out, well after war was underway, to create an emergency. Furthermore, she was not a fleet, but one of a two ship task group bent upon commerce raiding. Her departure from the Norwegian fiords was detected by British arial recon, and the Royal Navy took the necessary precautions by placing ships athwart the various routes Bismarck might take into the Atlantic.

The Germans, slow learners in the Naval field, ignored the fact that surface raiders had been either exterminated or driven into internment in neutral ports during the first war, hoping that a first rate battleship could prevail. Not to be.

Bismarck and her consort (Prince Eugen, if I recall correctly) were intercepted by HMS Hood and HMS Prince of Wales and engaged directly. Now a word or two about the British ships. Hood was an older vessel, WWI vintage, and not a true battleship, but rather a battle cruiser. Although the largest, and perhaps fastest of the British warships, she was lightly armoured, with topside armour not more than four inches thick, something akin to what we put on destroyers today. She was totally vulnerable to plunging fire. Prince of Wales, though a true battleship and heavily armoured, was brand new and on her shakedown cruise with shipyard workers still on board to work out the problems, especially those that plagued the operation of her main armament. Some writers expert on the subject have charaterized the British pair as a grandmother and a boy.

Be that as it may, Hood closed rapidly on Bismarck, knowing that Hood was vulnerable to plunging fire, but the officers (or admiral) on Hood made a tragic mistake, turning to uncover the main batterries too soon.

Bismarck got in a lucky shot that penetrated into Hood's magazine and blew her apart. There is more to this story, but later.

During the engagement, however, Bismarck took serious, if not visible damage, and was leaking fuel at a prodigious rate, requiring that she run for cover and port, in this case Brest where she could retire under land based Luftwaffe protection.

The British, however, had a tag on Bismarck, using the shipboard radar the Krauts lacked. Nonetheless, Bismarck made a brilliant maneuver, turning across her own wake, and totally evaded the search.

By this time the Royal Navy, stung by the sinking of Hood, turned every ship available into the search for Bismarck. Having released Prince Eugen to run for home, Bismarck was alone in the Atlantic and spotted by a PBY (American patrol plane used by the British) whereupon the Royal Navy converged. As it happened, a fortuitous torpedo from a British carrier plane hit the stern of Bismarck as she turned to avoid the attack. Now Bismarck was a fish in a barrel.

Simultaneously, HMS Rodney, a real battleship, though old, was on the way to Norfolk for refitting, and was diverted toward Bismarck. At that point, the Germans made a critical mistake. Assuming that Rodney was an older ship, like Hood, and therefor vulnerable, she turned her guns on Rodney. The Rodney, however, with sixteen inch guns and heavy armour, was perfectly capable of slugging it out with Bismarck, and in an engagemennt of a quarter or half hour duration, Bismarck was reduced to a pile of floating rubble.

My point here is that Bismarck was, yes, run down and sunk, but it took the whole might of the Royal Navy in the Atlantic to do it. Ships at sea are hard to put down.

So let's now go to the Pacific. Had the battle ship fleet at Pearl Harbor been put to sea, there is no reason to believe the Japanese would either have found them or sunk them. The Japs were not looking for a fleet at sea, but rather one in a harbor. Furthermore, they had no radar of any consequence at that time, and if they had it would have been turned off anyway, since any transmission would have revealed their intent, and secrecy was paramount in the sneak attack strategy. Likewise, they had no long range arial recon going for the same reason. Finally, had a battleship task force run across the Japanese carriers, which had no comparable escort, the sneak attack would never have taken place, as the carriers would have been sunk.

As for the notion that the Navy should have been lying in wait northeast of Hawaii as they did at Midway, that would presume that they knew that the Japs would have attacked there, which, of course, they did not.

Finally, as for Short putting the fighters out in the open, well, that was his mistake. He was worried about Japanese saboteurs, who might take out a dozen or so of his dispersed fighters. That he was making a huge strategical error is hardly a matter here; he had no indication from Washington that an attack was possible, if not immenent.

I must say, Maul, that putting words in my mouth is less than civilized. I never used the word "conspiracy" nor do I think any conspiracy was necessary. All that was required was a call from Roosevelt to SECNAV suggesting that some aircraft be sent to forward stations, and a similar call then to CNO, and the carriers would be doing FEDEX duty delivering planes when the attack was expected, and none the wiser. Do you think some documents are extant that would reveal the plan? If you do, you are far stupider than Roosevelt ever was.

Cheers,
s'Curius