Would warning have put the battleships at sea?

Could the battleships have left harbor or formed a defense with warning?

With hours rather than minutes, many could have put to sea, leaving Japanese aircraft a much harder search and targeting problem.

A few minutes would not have moved the fleet far, but the earliest submarine warning offered more than four hours. Ships able to raise steam could disperse with cruisers and destroyers rather than remain concentrated around fixed berths. Battleships sunk at sea might be lost beyond salvage, yet moving and mutually defended ships would be harder to find and hit. Japanese planning assumed known targets in the anchorage, so even an incomplete sortie would force reconnaissance and targeting decisions for which the attackers had not prepared. Many war games give commanders a near-perfect view of the enemy, whereas the real Japanese aviators would first have to locate a dispersed fleet.