The fuel tanks Japan left intact

The historical waves concentrated on aircraft and Battleship Row while leaving the oil tanks, submarine base, headquarters, and most of the navy yard largely intact. Pearl Harbor held roughly 4.5 million barrels, while eleven fleet oilers could carry about 750,000 barrels against rapidly rising wartime consumption. The fleet used about that much fuel in the first nine days of war, so even damage to a quarter or half of the storage system would have created major constraints. Destroying tanks, pumps, and high-pressure transfer equipment would have forced an inefficient tanker chain and competed for specialized machinery needed at oil fields and terminals elsewhere. The argument is that logistics infrastructure - not simply stored fuel - was the difficult capability to replace quickly and the more durable way to impede fleet recovery.