The Pacific War is a talked to death topic on the forum, and I wanted to see if I could add something to its most discussed campaign. Let's say that the Japanese fleet trying to invade Port Moresby at the Coral Sea was still turned back, but instead of losing the carrier Shoho, it was just damaged. Then at Midway, the Japanese get lucky and sink the Enterprise, Hornet, and Yorktown, without permanently losing any of their carriers. However, due to their poor amphibious doctrine, the invasion force under Kiyonao Ichiki (which in OTL was wiped out in the first land battle on Guadalcanal) is devastated and forced to retreat. While the Japanese would view this is as a huge failure, it would probably be for the best, as Midway was too close to Hawaii for the Navy to support with their abysmal logistics. The question now becomes, what does Japan do next? They were still trying to take Port Moresby, and landed troops at Buna and Gona on July 21 and Milne Bay on August 25 to accomplish this historically. With only the Saratoga, Wasp, and Ranger left as carriers, I doubt the US would want to risk invading Guadalcanal in this scenario. Could the Japanese take Milne Bay by sending the roughly 5,000 troops under the command of Kiyotake Kawaguchi they sent to Guadalcanal in late August and early September, instead to Milne? Finally there are long term questions that need answering. According to this excellent article, Guadalcanal was when the Japanese merchant fleet really began to incur losses, resulting in less shipping available for the civilian economy. Without Guadalcanal, how well could the Japanese economy do before shipping losses to submarines gets out of hand? Could the navy decide to divert more resources to protect shipping? Guadalcanal is also when the Japanese Naval Air Force began to suffer irreparable attrition. Without the battle, could they maintain the quality of their pilots with a better rotation and training program?