Was there really a plan to attack Pearl Harbor's facilities in a third wave?
Short answerThere was a contingency grounded in Japanese doctrine, but its composition and launch depended on the first waves destroying both primary targets and returning enough serviceable aircraft; the missing American carriers made launching it too risky.
NotesThe first two waves could be planned in detail because both launched before aircraft recovery, while any later strike depended on which aircraft and crews returned and what they reported. Japanese doctrine supported follow-on attacks against infrastructure once primary targets were destroyed, so a third wave did not require an equally detailed advance plan. Its composition would have depended on how quickly surviving first-wave aircraft could be serviced, rearmed, and relaunched. With the American carriers absent and still a potential threat to the Japanese force, withholding that follow-on strike was a rational operational decision rather than proof that the concept never existed. Destroying the carriers while finding the battle fleet absent might have reversed that calculation, because infrastructure attacks could trap slower surface forces while the Japanese carrier force withdrew.