Whispering Death

That has some reality but a lot of myth to it. True the aircraft carriers where primary targets, but it is no coincidence that the battleships where all lined up durring the attack while the carriers where out at sea. They made sure to attack when the battleships where most vulnerable because their assumption was that they where the biggest threat. It isn't a coincidence that the japanese attacked on the exact day that the battleships where most vulnerable, at the exact time when the battleships where most vulnerable.

Did any minisubs, spys, or scout planes ever try to radio back, "CALL OFF THE ATTACK, ALL THAT ARE HERE ARE BATTLESHIPS NOT CARRIERS!" Did Yamamoto ever say, "we have to call of the 2nd wave of bombers because there are no carriers there! We must save our armarments until we find them, quickly send out all avaliable search planes to find those carriers!"

Even in Midway they had only kinda' gotten the whole carrier idea. Remember that the carrier task force was sent out ahead of the MAIN invasion force comprised of their most powerfull battleships.

By the Marianas campaign the Japanese navy had fully realized the new method of war but by then the turkey shoot proved that they had incorrectly apropriated funds to battleships instead of aircraft. The cornerstone of their vision of the grand climactic battleship duel, the Yamato, was blown to pieces by American airpower on a suicide mission to Iwo Jima and sank with all hands.