Surely that only makes them as strong as they were in 1945 if not more so?
Where have the Americans been bombing Japan from? And I doubt the had the capacity to start blockading them in 1943 even with the crushing military victories.
The Japanese proved to be very adaptable and were able to cause large American casualties in OTL whilst lacking in these 2 resources.
I'm just nitpicking though, keep on writing this is a great story
I will answer these as I offered him the relevant information for part of it.
Due to Germany deciding to cut their losses and get out of North Africa sooner, the situation in North Africa and particularly Malta stabilized sooner.
This allowed the US Navy to send the aircraft carrier USS Wasp and a number of additional cruisers and destroyers to the Pacific somewhat sooner.
As a result, during the Battle of the Coral Sea, the US fleet fielded a force of three carriers, Yorktown, Lexington, and Wasp, as opposed to OTL when the US and Japan where pretty much equal.
As a result, in addition to the light carrier Shoho, Japan also lost the Shokaku. On the US side, while all the US carriers where somewhat damaged, none where sunk, so this mean the Lexington was able to fight another day.
Midway comes around and the US has a forth carrier in that fight. Battle goes the same as OTL most likely, except I figured that the Mogami would likely join her sister cruiser Mikuma on the bottom of the ocean.
As a result, you had a slightly stronger US fleet as opposed to OTL, versus a Japanese fleet which was down five of six fleet carriers after Midway, as opposed to only loosing four.
Having no threat to Malta and North Africa being secured sooner due to Germany pulling Rommel out sooner, ment the British where able to assemble a larger ad hoc fleet in the Indian Ocean sooner, and send some support to operate in Australian water.
Formidable, Indomitable, Ark Royal, Hermes, and Eagle for British carriers. They are nothing and irrelevant against the Japanese, but ITTL, with the US having been in a better position at Coral Sea and Midway, Japanese naval opposition has deteriorated to the point where this ad hoc Indian Ocean floatilla could actually pose somewhat more of a threat due to Japan simply having fewer carriers after Midway.
It was figured that some additional ships, likely Australian ships freed up from the Meditteranean would have likely operated in the Solomons.