I agree with chinese -canadian, the Japanese would have liked to destroy the carriers, but as luck would have it they were out of harbour at the time.
Whispering Death said..........
''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 available search planes to find those carriers!"
By then the Japanese had fully committed themselves to war and there was definitely no turning back.
The die was cast, it was sink or swim, do or die....well, I think you get my drift.
With the oil embargo in place and Congress passing the 2 ocean navy program [planning to build a fleet equal to the the next 2 biggest navies combined] the Japanese had little choice, war, or cave in to American demands and once committed they weren't going to worry if a few carriers weren't in harbour.
The intent of the attack on Pearl Harbor was to neutralise American naval power in the Pacific, if only temporarily, to give the Japanese time to over run South East Asia, set up fortified bases and bleed the Americans.
The Japanese were convinced that the Americans were a soft polyglot race, and didn't have the Bushido fighting spirit of the Japanese soldier, and wouldn't be prepared to fight a long bloody war of attrition.
How wrong they were.
And It didn't matter if the Japanese got it wrong by depending on battleships to much or not, [although they had arguably the best carrier force in the world in 1941]... the Americans would in time, vastly out produce Japan in carriers [over 100 to the Japanese less then 20] battleships, aircraft, manpower and every thing else you can think of [which Yamamoto predicted]
It would eventually be almost no contest, and thats where the Japanese regime differed with their nazi partners, who thought they could conquer the Soviet Union, they knew that in the long run they had little chance against the Americans.