During WW2, why did the US need to "island hop"?

Question

It may sound like a stupid question, but why did we need to attack Japanese forces on Midway, Guadalcanal, Wake, and Iwo Jima--islands with few or no useful resources--before we sailed to Japan? Why not engage the Japanese fleet in the North Pacific?

Answer 1

Dr. Vince is right. Given the long distances between land masses in the Pacific, the Allies needed to secure islands for logistic purposes as well as to establish landing strips for long range bombers to go after the Japanese mainland. In nearly every island invasion (Guadalcanal, New Guinea, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, et al.) the airstrip was one of the, if not the, primary goal. Many Japanese strongholds, however, were by-passed and left to "wither on the vine" (Truk, among others).

As for why the US did not have a large showdown in the North Pacific, well, Midway was pretty close to that, and served the same purpose. After Midway, it wasn't until the Battle of the Leyte Gulf when the two navies had another major league battle. In the meantime, numerous tactical conflicts occurred, but nothing so decisive as to effectively end the naval war.

Answer 2

By today's standards, most of the WWII attack aircraft (fighters and bombers) had pitifully short combat radii. Except for the B-29, a target 500 miles away was about the limit if you wanted fighter cover (highly desirable) and expected to do any maneuvering on the way in or out and still get back to base. So, to bomb Japan and to provide for air cover in the planned invasion, we had to get close. Admiral Nimitz's genius was in realizing that we didn't need to take all the Japanese-held islands, we could take some and skip some--hop over some, in effect. Land-based air cover from the islands we did take prevented the resupply, reinforcement and even withdrawal of Japanese forces on islands we hopped over--effectively isolating those forces.

As for the Japanese fleet, we did engage in massive sea battles at Midway and Leyte Gulf.

Answer 3

After Midway and Coral Sea, the Japanese had little Naval defense, and Island hopping was the best way to shut them down.

Answer 4

The US needed to have bases along the way to get to Japan. They needed to have places to store massive ammounts of fuel, supplies, and ammunition to take the war to the eastern side of the Pacific. Before the bomb was dropped it looked like the US would have to invade Japan. In order to accomplish this the US needed bases closer to Japan than Hawaii or Midway, to stage attacks and fly bombers out of.

Answer 5

The U.S. Island hopped in the South Pacific only to cut off the Japanese supplies..they didn't have to fight on every Island when they could by pass many Islands leaving Japanese to starve when their supplies were cut off.

Answer 6

IT WAS NOT SO IMPORTANT WHICH ISLANDS WE TOOK BY MAIN FORCE BUT THE FACT THAT WE BY-PASSED SO MANY OTHERS THAT MADE THAT TACTIC SO EFFECTIVE IN THE END!!!GUADALCANAL INVITED THE IMPERIAL JAPANESE AND THE AMERICAN U.S. NAVAL FORCES TO FIGHT PITCHED BATTLES IN AN AREA OF NO VITAL INTEREST TO EITHER PARTY WITH THE ABILITY TO SHOW THE TACTICAL SUPERIORITY AND LOGISTICAL EFFECTIVENESS AND RESOURCEFULNESS OF THE TWO WITH AND WITHOUT PARITY FROM BATTLE -TO- BATTLEWITH WHATEVER EACH SIDE COULD MUSTER WITHOUT DAMAGE TO EITHER COUNTRIES' HOMELAND OR CIVILIAN POPULATIONS..MUCH AS HITLER EMPLOYED ERWIN ROMMEL IN THE DESERTS OF NORTH AFRICA!!!!!