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That's something a lot of people mention and was pushed for at one point by Minoru Genda who actually planned the entire attack, but there are a couple reasons why that was unfeasible for the Japanese to do and the senior commanders overruled Genda for an all out invasion:
1. The Japanese had extremely limited troop and supply transports, this fact is one of the main reasons that contributed to their poor performance later in the war and why US submarines were so devastating. These assets were also controlled by different branches so the Army had their own transport assets and the Navy had their own as well. Given the inter-service rivalries there was very little sharing.
The main thrust of the Japanese attacks was the southern strategy to seize control of places like Singapore, Dutch East Indies and the Phillipines. They simply did not have enough troops and transports to do both and keeping Hawaii supplied and defended would have been a monumental task so far from the Japanese mainland. The oil in the Dutch East Indies was the number one target and any delay in taking it would be disasterous for the Japanese war effort.
2. Troop transports are slow and do not have great range. The entire key to the Pearl Harbor attack was surprise and that required the fleet used to move swiftly and refuel underway. The Japanese were essentially operating at the maximum extant of their operating range and taking troop transports along would have greatly slowed the fleet down increasing its odds of detection and would have also required additional refueling at sea.
ALSO Japanese thinking at the time was to cripple the fleet and give them time to conquer the Western Pacific and then return for Hawaii at a later date. MOST of our ships, aircraft and weapons were sadly outdated and obsolete. My dad told me how that day they cut down trees painted them black and put them in Hills of dirt as shore batteries as they didn't have enough. He had an old 03 Sprinfield and was issued 3 rounds for shore defense. The old canvas ammo belts for the machineguns were so rotted they fell apart when pulled out of the boxes.
The Japanese failed to use their submarines like we used ours. If they had stationed their huge plane carrying subs off the coast of Hawaii and waited for our carriers and sink them, the war would have lasted much longer.
new book reports that two days before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that officially brought the United States into World War II, President Roosevelt was warned about such a possible attack in a memo from naval intelligence.
"The evil that men do lives long after them. The good is oft interred with their bones."
Men like Churchill and Roosevelt probably saved the entire world from a terrible fate by making the decisions that they did. Where are their counterparts for today?
Nancy,
I would suggest that Mikhail Gobachev became one with Roosevelt and Churchill, when he took courageous steps toward peace and reform of an archaic political and economic system. It's been a long, painful process for the Russian people, but it helped ease tensions and move away from a deadly cold war arms race.
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