What was island hopping?

Answer 1

An Allied strategy in the Pacific of invading selected islands, and using them as bases to advance closer to Japan. By doing this, it spared many American Lives.

It also was used to only attack islands that could be used for an advantage in the war.

Answer 2

to capture some islands and ignore others

Explanation: American forces in the pacific followed an island hopping stragety, capturing some Japanese held islands and ignoring others in a steady path toward Japan.

Answer 3

During World War II, the American strategy of island-hopping involved a simple but highly effective strategy: Japanese strongholds would be bypassed, while islands helpful to the overall American (and Allied) effort would be taken. With the tremendous naval and air forces at their disposal, the Americans were able to conduct a generally successful offensive against the Japanese through this creative strategy.

Answer 4

To avoid needless bloodshed; heavily defended islands were BY-PASSED. The allied slogan was, "Hit em where they aint!" Heavily defended islands were assaulted ONLY if absolutely necessary (for their airfields): Such as Iwo Jima & Okinawa.
Using the popular phrase at the time, "hitting them where they ain't." The strategy involved BYPASSING any heavily defended islands; that were not critically needed. If Iwo Jima and Okinawa had not been critically needed...they would certainly have been "by-passed."
Island Hopping was used because the Allies needed to invade Japan, while also saving some key islands.
Island hopping, also called leapfrogging, was a strategy employed by the Allied Powers, led by the United States, in the Pacific Theatre during World War II. Since the Pacific was considered a secondary theatre of operation after Europe, the two military commanders, General Douglas MacArthur and Admiral Chester Nimitz, has limited resources since most troops and supplies were being sent to Europe to fight Germany and Italy. Because of this, the idea of efficiently using limited troops and supplies came about.

Island hopping involved bypassing heavily defended Japanese held islands and attacking and seizing more lightly defended islands in their rear. The Allies would use these bases to cut off supplies and communication to the bypassed islands rendering them useless to the Japanese. The Japanese would either have to abandon these islands or watch them starve for lack of food and ammunition.

The Allies used this strategy whenever possible but sometimes military or political necessity caused them to stray from this course. For example, Iwo Jima was a heavily defended island but the Allies needed it as a forward air base so they were forced to launch a costly invasion of the small island fortress. MacArthur's 1944 invasion of the Philippines was seen as a largely political move, even though the island chain could have been bypassed.
It refers to the US war in the Pacific against the Japanese. Japan had occupied many Pacific islands as well as Malaya, Singapore, the Philippines & so on. When the US was able it recovered these islands by military action using Naval & Marine forces.
By late 1942 the US was beginning to attain clear naval and air superiority in the Pacific. It occurred to planners that under these circumstance there was no need to invade every single island upon which the Japanese military was entrenched. The fight for each island was always a bloodbath because the Japanese, without hope of reinforcements or resupply, still fought to the death, to the last man, even though their position was hopeless as soon as the Allied invasion fleet appeared over the horizon.

In fact, it was possible to completely bypass Japanese strongholds and advance instead by taking lightly-held or unoccupied islands. The islands to be taken merely needed to be large enough to build airfields on them. Each step of the advance could be no farther than land-based aircraft could range, so that airplanes from the previously taken island could support the next advance. Carriers were scarce and expensive, and the navy was reluctant to commit them for extended periods in support of invasions, which would attract Japanese submarines.

Since the US was steadily gaining ever greater naval surface superiority in the Pacific, and US submarines were ravaging the Japanese naval and merchant fleets, it made sense to bypass large Japanese garrisons. The Japanese troops on these islands could not be withdrawn and redeployed in the Americans' path, because the US Navy would sink ships attempting this. The Japanese garrisons on bypassed islands could not even be resupplied, and were left to starve on the vine. Among other places left to rot in the backwaters of the war were Truk Atoll, which had been the major Japanese Fleet anchorage in the Pacific outside home waters, and Rabaul, which had at least 100,000 Japanese troops slowly starving on it. New US carriers would gain combat experience by periodically raiding these bypassed strongholds.

Sometimes it was impossible, because of the scarcity of islands, to avoid having to take islands held by the Japanese, and the usual, familiar dreary bloodbath would result.

Answer 5

Island hopping strategy is a phrase given by the United States to secure the small islands in the Pacific and to gain military bases. Island hopping is also called as â??leapfroggingâ??.

Answer 6

To stop the near merciless Japanese onslaught in the Pacific and take back the territories and countries for the people who lived there.