Pearl Harbor. Bad strategy, conservative decision making, not chickening out. In the long run, the fuel depot would likely have been a more valuable target than the BBs.
Midway. Four carriers down, the pilots lost, the war was over. Save what you have left to drag it out, hope for a stalemate? Again conservative, not chicken.
Leyte. No excuse for that one, they should have been on a suicide mission.
Strangely, you could argue that the japs were way more ready for the way the pacific war was fought than we were in some respects, but Midway really screwed that up for them. Probably the luckiest few minutes of the whole war.
