Importance of The Pacific Theater

In 1944 the book opens with the Allies’ island-hopping strategy, as they gradually retake territories from the Caroline Islands to Leyte to Okinawa. Though they are successful, the costs are enormous due to Japanese resistance. Each territory the Allies reclaim from the Japanese comes at great costs due to traps the Japanese have set, due to their refusal to surrender, and their willingness to die while inflicting maximum casualties on the approaching enemy. the lengths that the Japanese were willing to go to serves as a warning to the Americans of what awaits them if they invade the mainland, and informs the readers that despite the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, something worse awaited had America chosen otherwise.