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Thee were six aircraft carriers and about thirty ships total in the Japanese Task Force, including about seven oilers who had to go along to refuel the Japanese ships in mid-ocean. Japanese ships had a short cruising range, and only the two battleships and the two newest carriers had the range to make it to Hawaii and back without refueling. Underway refueling was not something the Japanese had ever done, and the difficulty of this requirement almost killed their plan to attack Hawaii. But they solved the problems and were lucky that seas were calm enough they could do the necessary refueling. The oilers turned back and did not get very close to Hawaii.

About 350 airplanes total were launched on the raid, in two waves of about equal size and very close together, one right after the other.

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15y ago

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