Yeah. The USA and Japan were planning that war ever since the 1920's, actually. The revolutionary Japanese use of aircraft carriers (inspired by the British raid on Taranto, Italy) kind of threw an unexpected spanner in the works. All the pre-war planning in both countries had focused on a theoretical huge battleship duel somewhere off the Phillippines.

The Japanese were hoping to hit the American carriers at Pearl, but they weren't there on the day of the strike. The old, slow battleships were a secondary target (and a fairly meaningless one strategically speaking, as it turned out in the next 3 years of naval warfare).

- LH