An Eastern Fleet victory erases the Pacific carrier-war sequence

What changes if the Japanese Indian Ocean raid force is destroyed with minimal British losses?

The major Pacific carrier battles largely disappear, the Royal Navy gains the defining early victory, and Allied command priorities shift.

A decisive British victory would remove the Japanese carrier striking force before the familiar sequence of Pacific battles. Midway and Coral Sea would either not occur or would be radically different because the ships that made them possible were gone. The result would also change the war's public narrative by giving the Royal Navy, rather than the US Navy, the great act of revenge after Pearl Harbor. Britain might reinforce the Indian Ocean while needing fewer defensive forces there, and MacArthur could even exploit the victory to argue for greater Royal Navy command influence in his theater.