The closing question imagines the Japanese carrier force entering 1941 and 1942 without fighters. Japan's aviation industry would probably have produced a new fighter eventually, but Pearl Harbor, Coral Sea, and Midway would have begun with strike aircraft alone. The Imperial Japanese Army was considering a similar course, and fighter policy was hotly contested in both services. An air-group composition decision could therefore have reshaped Japanese air power at the opening of the Pacific War.
Notable Point · 1:27:03-1:28:08
Army and navy debate nearly removed Japanese fighters
The closing counterfactual widens the fighter controversy beyond the navy and asks how Japan would have entered the Pacific War without carrier fighters.