on a list of possible locations (Pearl Harbor not among them), and since the Japanese were already committed to Thailand, it seems to have been expected another major operation by them was impossible. Clausen, like most, also ignores what actions Kimmel, Short, and Admiral Claude C. Bloch (Commander, Fourteenth Naval District, responsible for naval facilities in Hawaii) actually took. They took precautions against sabotage, widely expected as a precursor to war, and reported their preparations. The Hawaii commanders did not anticipate an air attack; no one did so explicitly. Indeed, the prevailing view at the time was Japan could not execute two major naval operations at once, so with the Thailand invasion convoy known to be at sea, the Hawaii commanders had good reason to feel safe. One major point often omitted from the debate (though Costello covers it thoroughly) is the Philippines, where MacArthur, unlike Kimmel or Short, had complete access to all decrypted Purple and JN-25 traffic CAST could provide (indeed, Stinnet quotes Whitlock to that effect), and was nonetheless caught unprepared and with all planes on the ground nevertheless, nine hours after the Pearl Harbor attack. Caidin and Blair also raise the issue. Although it has been argued that there was sufficient intelligence at the time to give commanders at Pearl Harbor a greater level of alert, some factors may take on unambiguous meaning not clear at the time, lost in what Roberta Wohlstetter in her masterful examination of the situation called "noise", "scattered amid the dross of many thousands of other intelligence bits, some of which just as convincingly pointed to a Japanese attack on the Panama Canal." Role of American carriers None of the three U.S. Pacific Fleet aircraft carriers were in Pearl Harbor when the attack came. This has been alleged by some to be evidence of advance knowledge of the attack by those in charge of their disposition; the carriers were supposedly away so as to save them (the most valuable ships) from attack. In fact, the two carriers then operating with the Pacific Fleet, Enterprise and Lexington, were on missions to deliver fighters to Wake and Midway Islands, which were intended in part to protect the route used by planes (including B-17s) bound for the Philippines (the third, Saratoga, was in routine refit in Puget Sound, at the Bremerton shipyard). At the time of the attack, Enterprise was about west of Pearl