Enterprise at Eastern Solomons and the Pearl Harbor counterfactual

Could sinking the American carriers at Pearl Harbor have changed the ultimate outcome of the Pacific War?

It could have transformed campaigns and casualties, but the Allies' deeper industrial and maritime infrastructure still made an Axis victory unlikely once a long war began.

Japanese aircraft searching for damaged Enterprise after the Eastern Solomons missed her by roughly 30 miles, illustrating how Pacific carrier battles could turn on a strike finding a task force across vast distances. That near miss opens a larger counterfactual about destroying the three American carriers at Pearl Harbor. Such a loss could have transformed campaigns, ship losses, casualties, and material expenditure. In this interpretation, however, Allied industrial and maritime infrastructure still made an Axis victory unlikely once the conflict became a long war.