That reminds me of Fringe, where the big reveal of Agent Dunham being on the other side involved a panning reveal shot of the Twin Towers that had survived that world's 9/11.
For all that this is awesome, it's not very visible in the big Newspapers. What you need in the late 41 to mid 42 time period is something big and splashy. Such as an air-raid on Tokyo.
I'd argue from a US homefront morale perspective, it's even more needed. Yes, we know that the Allies are doing a lot better, but the US public doesn't. What they see is McArthur dying in the Phillippines, those same Islands falling and the USN taking hits while the British and to a lesser...
Without Mac's "I shall return", SWPA will never be anything more than a sideshow to Nimitz. CINCPAC wants the Central Pacific Island hopping campaign, and to be entirely fair, he's probably right...
It's April 42, so the Japanese have maybe three more months before the Allies start to be too difficult a nut to crack for the sort of minimum effort ops the attack on the DEI was OTL. I'm fairly confident that Sumatra won't fall, even if Java does. And by this time in 1943, many a Beaufighter...
Honestly, if the Japanese can't take Java, then their position in the DEI will be screwed royally even earlier than OTL, what with air and naval bases there for the allies as well as Allied morale just being better.
Given that it was invented by Coca Cola Germany as a response to trade with the US being cut off, I doubt it.
Also:
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!