After the Battle of Midway, the American forces launched a counter-offensive strike called "island-hopping," creating a line of overlapping island bases and air control. The plan was to overtake key islands until Japan came within range of American bombers. Douglas MacArthur and Admiral Nimitz led the offensive. MacArthur laid out a two-pronged offensive, code-named CARTWHEEL, which would trap the Japs at Rabaul Island.
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One prong, MacArthur would march along the northern shores of New Guinea and into the Bismark Archipelago. The second prong, Halsey would come from the northwest from Guadalcanal and take the rest of the Solomon Islands.
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On December 9, 1942, Allied forces stormed Gona and captured it in about a month. And after a series of land and sea attacks, the Allies landed in New Britain at the end of 1943. Now looks turned to the Solomon Islands and Guadalcanal which after heavy fighting the Allies took. The first series of island hopping had begun.
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At the end of 1943, after taking the Gilbert Islands, this paved way for the attack on the Marshall Islands on January 31, 1944. Americans gained control over 3 more islands and their fleet and air arms moved forward. Meanwhile, American forces in the Southwest Pacific were approaching Mindanao, the southernmost of the Philippine Islands. The "Thousand-Mile War," (distance between American bases on the Alaska coast, Dutch Harbor, and western part of Aleutian Islands) would occur in taking the Aleutian Islands. And in just 36 days of brutal combat the Allies would take Iwo Jima, which is where three airstrips that the Japs had been using for their Kamikaze attacks. Later, Okinawa which would prove to be the bloodiest battle of the Pacific War. And lastly, on August 6, 1945, the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and three days later on Nagasaki. Now no mainland invasion would occur anymore; the fighting was over.
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