[geoschmo]

The Japanese navy fighters on Dec 7 1941 were all-metal monoplanes, not wood and canvas. The army might have had some scout planes that were wood and canvas, but the only front-line fighter plane in WWII that wasn't all-metal was the Hawker Hurricane flown by the British.

One Nimitz class nuclear carrier would have obliterated teh task force the Japanese sent to attack Pearl Harbor. Interestingly I'm not sure they could have stopped the attack so much. Modern Jets vs WWII fighters would be an interesting fight. The Modern jets would have a great advantage in that they could launch air-to-air missles from great distance. I'm not sure either could get guns on the other with the great speed diference. The WWII fighters would be much more agile at the slow speeds, but the jets would be so fast it would bascially take blind luck for either to hit an enemy target. Except the missles, and I'm not sure how many missles they would have. The Japanese had hundreds of planes in the air that day.

Where the Nimitz would really rock would be in taking out the Japanese fleet. They have anti-ship missles that would take out every ship in the fleet and any Japanese planes returning form Pearl wouldn't have anything to land on but oily water.