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You guys might know this:  did Hitler have any inkling about the Japanese planning to bomb Pearl Harbor or any direct attack on the US? 
Did he even share his wishes of what their actions would be?  Did they give the Germans any 'heads up' on their actions or plans?

I don't know of anything specific that the Japanese gave to Hitler and they probably wouldn't have.  

They believed that secrecy was ABSOLUTELY paramount to the success of what they termed the "Hawaii Operation" and since the Germans couldn't really help them there would have been no reason to take the security risk of tipping them off just as a favor and for no real good reason.  

It was pretty widely believed that Japan would enter the war at some point but very few (if any) people outside of Japan actually knew when or where.  

One guy who is absolutely fascinating is a guy named Richard Sorge.  He was a German Communist and anti-Nazi who joined the Soviet Intelligence network.  Eventually he moved to Japan posing as a Nazi German Journalist and cultivated an astounding spy network mostly operating out of the German Embassy in Tokyo.  Sorge may not have known that the Japanese would hit Pearl Harbor specifically (I'm not sure and it didn't matter much to Stalin anyway).  What he DID know was that the Japanese were going to attack the US and occupy colonial possessions of the US, British, and Dutch and NOT attack the Soviet Union.  That information was passed along to Moscow and led to the Soviets retrieving an enormous number of troops that had been in the far Eastern Soviet Provinces as a screen against potential Japanese invasion.  Those troops got to Moscow and led the Soviet counter-offensive that removed the immediate threat of Nazi occupation of the Soviet Capital.  Interestingly, the Soviet counter-offensive started at almost exactly the same time as the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor which demonstrates that the Soviets pulled the troops BEFORE Japan went to war with the US.  In turn that demonstrates that the Soviets did it based on the information provided by their spies not waiting for the outbreak of hostilities.  

The (short) background is that the Soviets and Japanese had fought an undeclared war along the frontier between Japanese Manchuko (Manchuria) and the Soviet Union in the 1930's.  The Soviets pretty well kicked the Japanese asses (which should have told the Japanese that their Army wasn't really up to first world standards) but in spite of that the Soviets still felt the need to maintain a substantial army in the area in case the Japanese decided to restart hostilities.  That is until Richard Sorge notified them that the Japanese had no such intention.  

The Germans and Japanese were allies of convenience and nothing more.  They were in a somewhat forced marriage by virtue of having a lot of common enemies but they didn't actually like each other.  Hitler had declared that the Japanese were "Honorary Aryans" but he didn't actually believe it.  Hitler, of course, believed in Aryan supremacy and the Japanese were obviously NOT Aryan.  On the flip side it is largely forgotten today but the Japanese were no less racist than the Nazis, just in favor of a different race, their own.  The Japanese believed that their race was superior to all others.  This belief clouded their Army leaders' judgement to an incredible degree.  When confronted with massively superior numbers of more well trained and supplied enemies the Japanese Army higher-ups basically said "well beat them with your Japanese superiority" thus consigning literally millions of Japanese troops to their deaths in actions against ridiculous odds.  

A curious side note:
Japan's capture of Singapore from the British was a massive embarrassment for the British.  The British actually had superior numbers and most Europeans of the day considered Europeans to be superior to "mere" Asians such as the Japanese.  When this happened Hitler's Foreign Minister, Von-Ribbentrop wanted to use it as Propaganda against the British but Hitler forbid it because he felt that the British were fellow Aryans and that any Aryan embarrassment at the hands of "mere" Asians was an embarrassment to all Aryans.  

Think about that for a minute:  At that time Hitler was fighting a desperate war against Britain, the Soviet Union, AND the United States in which he needed any possible advantage that he could get and yet he forbid his underlings to make propaganda use of a startling embarrassment to his longest-standing enemy.  

I recently watched a video about that Singapore siege.......the Japanese traversed some difficult "we dont' have to worry about it" terrain (according to the Brits) on bikes, apparently.  Once they popped out from that surprise location, it was too big a disadvantage to recover from.

A myth about Singapore was that the big British guns all faced seaward and couldn't be turned about.  Reality was they could, but they had mostly armor piercing ammunition, not useful against a ground force.

The Russians had a heads up about Pearl Harbor, I don't think the Germans did.  The Russians started moving troops from Siberia to Moscow early because of this and blunted the last gasp German offensive, and pushed them back some.

We weren't yet aiding the Russians.

One real oddity about aid to Russia is that Russian cargo ships carried it across the Pacific to Vlad without fear of Japanese interception.  All you needed was a reflagged Russian cargo ship and the Japanese wouldn't touch it.  Of course, then the Russkis had to move the stuff across Siberia to the front.

The Russo-Japanese war of 1937 taught the Japanese a real lesson.

Politicians require there be enemies, if one does not exist one is created.

Percival surrendered 81,000 troops at Singapore to 34,000 IJF and they were almost completely out of ammo.But he didn't know that,but he really had no reinforcement to speak of with the RAF and RN not in the immediate vicinity.The IJF didn't have much back up around either so ya the crown losing face.Since 1940  British Empire forces "evacuated" from Norway, Netherlands,Belgium and France,Dunkirk.  1941  Greece, Crete,Hong Kong and Libya. 1942  Singapore,Dieppe and Tobruk.What's that 0-11 or sum such

"Darkest Hour" is not just a phrase.  The Norway debacle led to the "Norway Debate" in the House of Commons which resulted in Chamberlin stepping down.  Churchill then took over just in time for the German invasion of Western Europe which was a MUCH worse debacle for the British than Norway had been.  They lost their only ally (France) and saw German troops advance practically to within sight of their island.  

Dunkirk was somewhat of a bright spot but wars are not won by evacuations . . .  Except that they kinda are.  The troops pulled out of France at Dunkirk were Britain's most experienced troops.  They formed the nucleus of the force that would return almost exactly four years later at Normandy.  

You mentioned Tobruk and the North Africa Campaign is fascinating.  The opposing forces advanced and retreated then retreated and advanced, then advanced and retreated again over staggering distances.  

Fundamentally wars are won and lost on logistics.  North Africa was no exception.  The Italians and Germans had a lot shorter distance to cover and the Italian Navy, on paper, was a powerful force to be reckoned with.  In reality the Italian Navy spent most of the war confined to home ports for lack of fuel.  Italy's fuel situation was even worse than Germany's as they were dependent on the fuel-starved Germans for oil for their ships.  

For the British (and later also the US) the logistical problems were distance and U-Boats.  North Africa is a REALLY long way from North America/Britain and the Mediterranean was crawling with U-Boats.  

The final downfall was not until late Spring of 1945 but all plausible Axis chances were extinguished not long after the calendar turned from 1942 to 1943.  At about that time the Soviet Operation Uranus surrounded the entire German sixth Army at Stalingrad and almost simultaneously the British and Americans captured almost 300k axis troops in North Africa.  The Germans simply couldn't recover from losses on that scale.  

In lend lease the USA sent 12-1300 locomotives also.After Stalin died there was a brief easing up of tensions and both Zhukov and Khrushchev thanked IKE as POTUS for the massive aide,quite a productive country back in the day.The thing with fighting the IJF was it was different island fighting and damn sure Naval Warfare and logistics,something the Reds never really had

US Gross Product entering WWII was roughly 50% of global Gross Product and it remained around that into the 1950's.  That is just staggering to think about.  Literally half of EVERYTHING made in the world was made in the US.  

Oil was obviously the biggest single factor in WWII and at the time of WWII the US produced around 2/3 of the total world oil supply.  Japanese ships and German Tanks were continually halted by lack of fuel but the Allies only ever experienced that situation as a temporary local issue, never as an overall shortage.  

At the end of WWII if there had been a massive Naval Battle pitting the US Fleet against the rest of the World's combined Navies the rest of the world would have been hopelessly outnumbered.