Carl Schwamberger said:
maybe King would have taken a more balanced approach from 27 Nov and scheduled a more sustainable alert program, that would not have brought pressure for a maintiance stand down? Alternately he might have not scheduled the stand down Dec 6th & 7th & kept everyone in the Navy at full speed despite soaring equipment deadline rates and increasing accidents?
That's an option I hadn't considered.
It might mean PacFleet meets Nagumo ready.
Bad news for Japan...
If it does (or only means a less-crushing U.S. defeat

), can King's career survive? If he's retained as CinCPac after 7 Dec, what does the rest of the war look like? My sense is, he's aggressive, maybe moreso than Nimitz. Was he more willing to use mining against IJN anchorages? (Nimitz seemed hostile to mining.) If he's more willing, this is good for the Sub Force. I have a sense he'd be less enamored of the guerrilla sub ops, also good for Sub Force.
OTOH, where does Nimitz end up? As ComSubPac?

(He'd be about right for the seniority...)