Category: Naval Strategy

• Insurance Fleet

  This theory claimed that the U.S. Navy intentionally sent its newest and most valuable aircraft carriers out to sea before the Pearl Harbor attack, preserving the real future power of the Pacific Fleet while allowing the older battleships to be sacrificed. In its strongest form, the theory argues that Washington or naval command knew carriers had replaced battleships as the decisive arm of modern sea power and therefore shielded them from the strike. The historical record confirms that the Pacific Fleet’s carriers were not at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. It also shows that Enterprise and Lexington were away on aircraft-ferry missions to Wake and Midway and Saratoga was undergoing refit on the U.S. West Coast. The public record does not support that these absences were arranged as a sacrificial insurance policy.