Did Pearl Harbor have a light house?

Answer 1

No. There were about six lighthouses at various points around the coast of Oahu Island, the nearest to Pearl Harbor being at Diamond Head, east by south of the Harbor entrance, past Honolulu and Wakiki. In downtown Honolulu, by the waterfront, there is the Aloha Tower, which had a navigational beacon. This is only a few miles from Pearl Harbor, to the east.

Pearl Harbor has only one narrow entrance and a narrow channel to reach to wider Harbor. This was one reason many Navy leaders objected to basing the Fleet there after the Hawaiian maneuvers of 1940 - one ship sunk in the channel and the entire fleet would be bottled up in the Harbor until the wreckage could be removed. But President Roosevelt insisted that the fleet be kept at this forward base, 2200 miles west of its former anchorages on the west coast of the mainland US. Roosevelt believed keeping the fleet at this forward base exercised a "restraining influence" on Japanese aggression. Admiral Richardson commanded the Fleet in 1940, and disagreed strenuously. Richardson traveled to Washington in October 1940 to try to talk the President into returning the Fleet to the west coast, worrying that the Fleet might get bottled up in the Harbor, and that the Fleet could not be defended in the Harbor with the resources available. Richardson argued so strongly that Roosevelt removed him from command of the Fleet a couple of months later, after only a year in command. Normally an officer kept this position two years.