Despite being spotted by a patrol boat, Admiral Halsey and General Doolittle decide not to launch early and press onward with the attack. The task force is then intercepted and ingloriously sunk.
Also, Halsey makes it back alive.
The Battle of the Coral Sea goes roughly as OTL. Lexington sunk, Yorktown crippled, Shokaku and Zuikaku out of action for months.
To make up for the losses, the USS Wasp, USS Washington, and USS Ranger are pulled from the Atlantic.
When the Battle of Midway rolls around, the Yorktown isn't fully repaired. Instead, the USS Saratoga, USS Wasp, and USS Ranger are committed to battle. It goes poorly. The USS Saratoga, as in all timelines, is a torpedo magnet, and a Japanese sub disables her. The sub reports the location to the Kido Butai. Airstrikes result in a two-for-two exchange: The Wasp and Ranger are crippled, as are the Amagi and Kaga. Halsey, humiliated by the disaster of the Dootlittle Raid, has tried to tough out his illness aboard the USS Washington. The sickness and desire for redemption lead to the...questionable...decision to accept a night time surface battle. That goes about as well as you can expect, and the next day the Japanese forces mop up American cripples and tow their own to safety.
The USS Yorktown is returned to service and sent to Guadalcanal. A carrier battle, roughly equivalent to the Eastern Solomons is fought. USS Yorktown is sunk, but for the moment, all Japanese carriers are out of action. The US cruisers suffer their lopsided historical losses, and the new USS South Dakota is, as OTL, committed as their replacement. Unfortunately, she suffers her historical electrical failure. Without USS Washington (sunk at Midway) to bail her out, the most advanced and modern US fast battleship is subjected to the disgracing fate of being sunk by a WWI battlecruiser. The US fails to take Guadalcanal.
By this time, the Japanese carriers have been repaired and the US leadership is desperate for a victory. General MacAuthur's plans are endorsed instead of the failed USN strategy. He is given control over the green USS Essex and USS Independence. Needless to say, this is a horrible idea, and MacArthur inexplicably manages to get them sunk by land based aircraft.
At this point, the pilot situation is reversed compared to OTL, as the Americans throw increasingly inexperienced pilots into combat against the battle hardened Japanese. After a couple more carriers are sunk as the USN is forced to throw them away to satisfy political pressure, MacArthur is even more inexplicably, given comprehensive control over the Pacific War.
In 1952 MacArthur is elected on the basis of his 1947 victory over Japan on the platform of "nuking the commies is the right think to do." Global nuclear holocaust in 1953.