re: Was Strawberry 9 the most important plane in American history?

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Maybe a setback that would have prolonged the war, but we were never going to lose the war in the Pacific, from the moment it started. We built hundreds of aircraft carriers and other surface ships in 3-4 years, and Japan lacked the capacity industrially or militarily to project power any further than it already was. The Japanese would never have been able to keep up, even if we lost our other two carriers at Midway.

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I'm no not too sure about this. If the Japanese win Midway, we lose our remaining carriers at that battle. We have no way of projecting airpower into the Pacific and they park their carriers off of the west coast. With bombing missions they keep any west coast shipyards at bay from producing more carriers. They probably park a carrier or two down at the Panama canal to keep Atlantic fleet boats from crossing over. Unless the US sub fleet can keep them off the coast it greatly changes the way the rest of the war plays out.
Hence no island hopping, no bomber bases to reach Japan and no Enola Gay to drop the big one on Hiroshima.
Just a thought