Thanks to the Coral Sea and Midway, the Japs had fewer carriers to devote to the sea battles for Guadalcanal.
understood.
That probably required them to use their airbases on rabaul in order to strike guadalcanal targets..a long round trip, for sure, but the initial naval battles around Guadalcanal were cruisers, etc..savo island, for example.
again, not understating the impact of Midway....just presenting a different opinion that it may have not been as much as the decisive turning point that historians have made it to be.