I cannot belive the people who seem to think that just because you currenly have bad relations with a country, its ok to go out and sink their ships in international waters, just in case they might do something to you!
PLEASE learn something about how you go about these things.
Now, what would a SANE Kimmel do?
(1) Make sure his long range planes were shadowing the Japanese fleet. very obviously.
(2) Send out some destroyers, a cruiser or 2, again to very ostentatiously shadow the fleet.
(3) Send his big ships out, but keep them away from the Japanese. He knows where they are, they dont know where he is.
(4) If he has subs available, send tem out too, but keep them hidden.
(5) Keep looking for the 'rest ' of the fleet - after all, its the battleships you need to worry about, right?
The US State department might also (note its their job, not Kimmels) insist that the fleet moves away, just in case of 'mishaps', and also point out that a mass plane launch will be taken as an attack as they are within strike range of a major US base (now they've been warned, so if they ignore it it would be acceptable to take action).
The Japanese are now stuck. If they stay there or launch, they are not only attacking a warned and prepared target, they know there will be heavy counterattacks immediately. If they leave, they havent acheived anything, although they can claim they were just conducting a fleet excercise on the open seas, and the US is being an aggressor.
None of this batshit about happily attacking the Japanese fleet without warning at sea, please.