One of the largest aspects of the campaign was called
island-hopping. Rather than trying to take every single fortified island, the
commanders in the Pacific identified each step that was necessary and bypassed some very
heavily fortified bases knowing that they could control shipping lanes and other avenues
of approach and basically starve out those garrisons rather than taking them on with
costly invasions.
In doing so, they also moved to position
themselves for the final assault on the home islands as well as putting themselves into
a position to bomb the Japanese mainland with bases in places like Saipan and Iwo
Jima.
The campaigns to take these islands tended to be very
bloody frontal assaults on the beaches as the Japanese had become experts at fortifying
the rugged coral islands and the fighting to take them was intense and very
costly.
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