I’ve always thought that the SW Pacific campaign was a waste of lives and resources. In retrospect, it was the Central Pacific campaign that began in 1943 that eventually won the war by bringing strategic bombers within range of Japanese cities.

At the time, the SW Pacific was the only front we had in 1942. So, it built up a momentum of its own simply by existing. It led eventually to the Philippines and the deaths of hundreds of thousands people that could have been avoided. Many of those people were Americans and Filipinos that otherwise would have survived the war.

It’s hard to condemn the US strategy in hindsight, because they had to fight Japan somewhere. However, by 1944 it should have been clear that Japan was the ultimate target and the SW Pacific was very far away from the home islands.