You better make it good. I have thought of some scenarios to justify the carriers being there but I scratched each one after some checking. I hope you can do better than me. I look forward to seeing your idea.

Even more unlikely. With most of the Atlantic a war zone, and war about to break out in the Pacific, the USN isn't going to be scheduling any large scale exercises. The annual fleet exercise known as Fleet Problem XXII, scheduled for the Spring of 1941, was canceled for exactly this reason. Even many badly need refits/rebuilds of major ships were postponed in 1941 because of the threat of imminent war. If in the extremely unlikely event the USN considered a fleet exercise necessary for some desperately compelling reason, it would be held in the Caribbean for security reasons. The Atlantic was out of the question because of the U-boat war raging there, and the Pacific, particularly the area around Hawaii, was known to be under observation by Japanese submarines. Some small gunnery exercises were held, in 1941, for battleships and cruisers off the southern California coast with the ships in question temporarily based at San Pedro, but no large scale fleet exercises were held anywhere near Hawaii after 1940. Even shakedown cruises of newly commissioned ships were conducted off the East Coast or in the Caribbean, except for those few vessels built on the West Coast.

As someone else has pointed out, short-ranged, land-based planes could be, and were, delivered to remote islands disassembled and packed in crates. Any kind of cargo ship could accomplish this, often the crates were carried as deck cargo. The disadvantage of this method is that the planes have to be reassembled and tested before they can be used. This requires skilled mechanics and the necessary tools, but these can also be delivered by the same types of ships. The assembly process and testing routinely took 2-3 days, but could be accomplished in 24 hours if necessary.

Assembled and flyable aircraft, to be used immediately, required a flight deck to be flown off of. But if berthing facilities were available and equipped with cranes of the required capacity, the ship might come alongside a pier or dock and have the planes lifted off the flight deck and transferred to the dock. Many small islands had no such facilities and the preferred method was to have the planes flown off and land directly on the airfield where they were to be based.

Even if the US lost all it's fleet carriers, it would still have two aircraft transports in commission in December, 1941, the Langley and the Long island, which could deliver assembled fighter aircraft to island bases. The Langley's flight deck had been partially dismantled in compliance with provisions of the Washington Treaty, but it could have easily and quickly been restored upon the outbreak of war. The Long Island was the prototype CVE and actually was used for delivering fighters and other planes to Guadalcanal in 1942. Fleet carriers were also used for such duties at times, notably the Wasp and the Ranger in the Atlantic.

One other possibility that hasn't been mentioned is that the US gets one or more carriers on loan from the Royal Navy. This was actually discussed during the early part of the Pacific War. The USN eventually decided not to take a British carrier because they felt that the smaller air wing, differences in equipment, and lower performance of the ship in general were not worth putting one in US service. In a more desperate situation I could see the US taking this option up.

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I guess you haven't heard of the "USS Robin". This was the codename for HMS Victorious during the time she served with the US Pacific Fleet in the Spring of 1943. In the late fall of 1942, the USN was down to one operational carrier, the Saratoga, in the Pacific. A request was made of the RN to loan the USN a flattop until the Enterprise could be repaired and the Essex, commissioned on the last day of 1942, could complete it's workup. The RN duly detached Victorious and sent it to the US for a refit to allow it to work alongside the Saratoga. This refit took so long that it wasn't until May, 1943, that the "USS Robin" (Victorious) was ready. By this time, the Enterprise had been repaired and the Essex was deemed battle worthy, but the "USS Robin" did participate along with Saratoga in the New Georgia invasion operations(Operation "Cartwheel"), giving air cover to the invasion forces. During the operation, Saratoga operated as a "strike" carrier, and the smaller Victorious carried mostly US fighter aircraft (F4F's) for defense of the task force. The USN was not impressed with the Victorious, even though she was an armored carrier, and in September, 1943, she returned to service with the RN in the Atlantic.

HMS Victorious, British fleet aircraft carrier, WW2

Carriers to transport "one way Charlies"..How a bout that....who'd a figured.

USS Philippine Sea

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The USN could also have quickly grabbed the French carrier Bearn at Martinique and referbished her as an additional aircraft transport and escort carrier if the situation demanded it.

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If the US carries are sunk won't the Japanese be more aggressive as some have pointed out? Would this not also make it harder for the US to ship aircraft through hostile waters?As has been said the US navy would probably have to pull back to the west coast leaving most of the western pacific outposts undefended until they rebuilt their fleet.

More aggressive in what way? The Japanese used their carriers primarily in hit and run raids against Allied strong points, sometimes in conjunction with invasion operations. But the Japanese had a number of problems to overcome before they could attempt any more operations than they actually did. The first and probably most important is the severe shortage of logistical shipping. The Japanese historically employed the equivalent of about 11 divisions in the first six months of the war in the Pacific, and this was pretty much the limit that their combined military and and merchant marine logistical shipping could support. If they wanted to seize more territory and hold it, they would have had to come up with more logistical capacity (which was impossible) or eliminate operations elsewhere.

Secondly, Kido Butai, itself was limited in what it could do. Kido Butai could not remain at sea for more than about 15 consecutive days (including traveling between their base and an operational area) and historically never exceeded this limit. That was not enough to project Japanese power very far into the eastern Pacific; The Japanese carriers could hit and run, but they couldn't stay and provide sea control. Additionally, the Japanese carriers began to feel the strain as the war progressed, crews and aircrew, as well as ships couldn't be run indefinitely without rest, refit and training. Most importantly, the carrier airgroups were becoming seriously diminished both in aircraft and trained, experienced pilots; at the time of Midway, IJN airgroups were significantly below pre-war levels and the Japanese aircraft industry wasn't turning out enough aircraft to replace even the modest losses suffered up to that point in time. The Nagumo Report makes interesting reading in this regard.

The USN wasn't going to "pull back to the West Coast" no matter what happened; Hawaii was identified as being part of "the strategic triangle", crucial to the defense of North America. As I have pointed out before, the defense of Hawaii had priority over even the "Europe First" policy. Had every single carrier the USN possessed been somehow lost, Hawaii would still have been reinforced, particularly with aircraft, to a level that would have precluded any Japanese attack. This would have been done by flying large planes in from the San Francisco area, and shipping crated fighters and short-range attack aircraft by freighter. The convoys would be fought through, if necessary, but the IJN did not have the capability to effect a sea blockade of Hawaii.

The sea lanes to Australia would have been more problematical, but as a casual perusal of a globe will reveal, it would be impossible for the IJN to blockade Australia, as well; the Japanese just didn't have enough ships and planes to blockade an entire continent, although they could make it difficult to continue the buildup of forces there. One has to understand that the Japanese were seriously over-extended even before Coral Sea and Midway and the more territory they captured, the weaker they became. They couldn't keep all their garrisons supplied with even the basics, let alone what it would take to hurl back an Allied offensive. The proof of this is that very soon after the Allied invasion of Guadalcanal, the Japanese gave the island a new name; "Starvation Island".

As I have argued, it is extremely unlikely that the USN would ever lose more than two carriers at one time (historically, it never lost more than one carrier in any single battle), but assuming it did lose two carriers at Pearl Harbor, it still has five fleet carriers which it can operate in the Pacific. Historically, the USN was often down to only one or two fleet carriers, yet it held the IJN to a checkmate throughout the first year of the war.

without hardly any naval aviation and battleships to oppose them, the japanese could have consolidated their hold on the islands and even invade australia. granting the US production could erase that loss within two years, the bombing campaign over japan would have been deferred to maybe 1946. that's four years of peaceful skies above japanese factories.

given the luxury of at least two years before the US can launch a counter-offensive, could japan have stockpiled enough petroleum, built enough capital and support ships, and most importantly, modernized its air arm to a point that it can take on third fleet when the time came?

The short answer is, NO. Japan won't have two years before the American counter-offensive becomes a reality. Peaceful skies above Japanese factories will not stave off starvation of the vital raw materials due to the American submarine campaign which shifted into high gear in mid 1943. The Japanese war machine will still be short of oil, rubber, copper, bauxite, zinc, chromium, and hundreds of other scarce, yet vital commodities.


Consolidation of the Conquered islands/Defensive Line

The Japanese military historically did little to "consolidate" their hold on any of the captured islands in the South Pacific until 1943 when it became painfully obvious that their calculations about American determination to seriously prosecute total war were totally wrong. So it's unlikely that they would do any "consolidation" in the absence of American pressure. Admiral Paul Wenneker, the German naval attache to Japan, made a visit to the conquered territories and had this to say about what he witnessed; "Early in the war I made a trip through the South Sea Islands (NEI) and up through the MARIANAS to see conditions with my own eyes. I was astounded in the South Seas. The Japanese there were thoroughly enjoying the lush life. They had parties continually and were drinking all the liquor they had captured [at Singapore]. I asked them why they did not prepare fortifications and do something to make these places stronger, but they said that the Americans would never come, that they could not fight in the jungle and that they were not the kind of people who could stand warfare in the south. As far as I know all those people in those places, both Army and Navy, once they had got into a place where there was no fighting, would do nothing more about the war."


USSBS: Interrogations of Japanese Officials -- 70/359


The Invasion of Australia

The Japanese did discuss the invasion of Australia, but the discussion went nowhere and, indeed, could not have gone anywhere for the simple reason Japan lacked the necessary logistical shipping to even consider supporting such a large scale offensive. The Japanese Navy initially favored an invasion, but only the Japanese Army had enough troops to launch an invasion of a country which approached China in size. The IJA calculated (rather optimistically) that such an invasion would take a minimum of 10-12 divisions and, having been bogged down in China for four years, it had no intention of making such an open-ended manpower commitment. In addition to that, the IJA (correctly) claimed that supporting 10-12 divisions in addition to those already engaged in the Pacific was beyond the logistical capacity of all the shipping available to Japan. So there is not going to be an invasion of Australia no matter what befalls the US Navy.

"Shattered Sword", Parshall and Tully, page 27


The US Production Tsunami

As for US production, historically, the US Navy began commissioning the ships that would overwhelm the Japanese Navy at the end of 1942. In 1943, the USN commissioned either a CV or a CVL every three weeks; This was far beyond the capabilities, or even the imagination, of the Japanese. By mid-1943, the USN had enough carriers, even without the pre-war ships, to crush the IJN. It could have launched the planned Central Pacific offensive without reference to the South Pacific, and it would have been just as fatal to the Japanese defenses. It was the politics of the divided command in the Pacific that delayed the launching of the long awaited assault.

Even with the damage at Pearl most of the carriers would have been repaired by the end of 42, at the latest mid 43.

Even without any US action Japan only had enough oil for a short war. Yes After the Southern Operation they had more coming in but it was not enough.

Japanese industry was not that well founded. The fighters that took place in the Pearl Strike only received their guns a week before they left.

American bombing of Japan was not to destroy industry but to destroy industrial workers.

Japan would have been a little stronger but not much. Good post though.

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(Photo removed for humanitarian reasons.)

D...m you. I was gong to pull that one out of the box. The Bearn had already been used to transport US made aircraft to France. I wonder if much refurbishment would have been needed?

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If they do the above then how can they do this:
Especially when they are doing this:
Take a look at this article to see what kind of problems the Japanese were having with oil. Operating more vessels and planes isn't going to help.
Oil and Japanese Strategy in the Solomons: A Postulate
Also look at this page
http://www.combinedfleet.com/economic.htm
Note that in 1942 the US produce 18 carriers of various flavors compared to the Japanese producing 17 for the entire war. Note also that in 43 the US produced 65.