San Francisco lay at the edge of a roughly 6,000-nautical-mile route, making a smaller carrier force more plausible than the full Pearl Harbor strike group. Hunters Point and the surrounding area retained important repair and support infrastructure from its earlier role as the Pacific Fleet's base. An attack on the continental United States could also have compelled the fleet to sail in pursuit, allowing Japanese forces waiting near Hawaii to attack ships where they could not be refloated. Losses in deep water would remove more trained crew as well as hulls, compounding the operational effect. The extra fuel cost might have constrained other operations, but deeper American losses could have extended Japan's time to consolidate its gains.
Chapter · 43:50-46:42
San Francisco as a strike-and-ambush target
A two-carrier raid on the Pacific coast might have damaged deeper fleet infrastructure and drawn Pearl Harbor's ships into an open-ocean ambush.