Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

If we didn't "own" the PI they probably would have left us alone.

So you're saying Japan's fleet was flagged for pass interference and after the 15 yard penalty they couldn't convert, so they punted and waited for our offense?  

I guess, I've had a notion for a while that the PI caused Japan to attack us.

It was two things:

• The Phillipines sat astride the shipping routes that the Japanese were going to have to use to get the raw materials (mostly oil) from the Dutch East Indies to Japan.
• With Britain obviously preoccupied the USN was the only force even plausibility capable of challenging IJN supremecy in the Pacific.

Imagine Japan doesn't attack us and we're not on the PI.  They go ahead and take over Borneo and Indonesia, nobody really would do more than yell at them.  They secure their oil supplies, and go on as usual.  What else did they need?

This is an interesting counterfactual.

Since Indonesia was a Dutch possession then known as the Dutch East Indies (DEI) the Dutch would have declared war on them which is more than yelling but maybe not much more since the Netherlands was occupied by Germany at the time and thus in no position to mount a response. 

The more interesting question concerns the hosts of the Dutch Government in Exile. They were based in London. 

In your hypothetical you didn't specify whether or not the Japanese took Malaya and Singapore but I don't think that it matters. I think that the British would have entered into war with Japan at the side of their Dutch Allies either way.

Roosevelt had more-or-less assured Churchill that the US would join that struggle but convincing Congress and the American people to support a war to defend European Imperialism would have been a tough sell. 

I blame Churchill

The IJN was not involved in sinking either ship. 

The 7th Cavalry had better odds entering the Valley of the Little Bighorn than the Repulse and Prince of Wales had off of Malaya in the South China Sea but onward your hero ordered them.

OMG stop, you are embarrassing yourself.

I'm no Churchill famboy. There are plenty of legitimate criticisms of him and you've even managed to stumble across some of them.

That he ordered Repulse and POW out from Singapore to contest the Malaya landings is NOT a legitimate criticism of Churchill because he never gave such an order. This has been demonstrated to you repeatedly by @Cincydawg and I and yet you have repeated this false assertion here.

The IJN had11 Fleet Carriers

Inform Yamamoto and Nagumo immediately, they'll be thrilled to learn that they have 11 fleet carriers as of December, 1941 (or ever for that matter).

Previously you said 18.

Now you are down to 11.

Keep going, you'll get it right eventually.

Please see: http://www.combinedfleet.com/economic.htm

Here are the actual figures for fleet carriers:

Zuikako and Shokaku were commissioned late in 1941. They joined the IJN's four existing fleet carriers to give Japan a total of six:

• Kaga
• Akagi
• Sorry
• Hiryu
• Shokaku
• Zuikaku

NOTE: Spellings are doubtful, I didn't look them up.

This was the most fleet carriers that the IJN ever possessed at one time. Not 18 as you stated previously. Not 11 as you stated above. Six. That is it.