I was reminded and still shocked that the taking of just Leyte resulted in over 17,000 US soldiers being killed plus the sailors.
The Japs did have the Philippines and they were making Filipino lives miserable and they did have a whole bunch of surviving Americans prisoner but the Phillipines served no strategic value like Guam, Okinawa, Iwo Jima, Tinian etc. No strategic value is the same reason Formosa was by passed.
The prisoners at Cabanatuan could have been rescued by other means.
It looks like McArthur’s personal war with our sons to me.
Pelilu was equally wasteful and without merit. That Jap garrison could have been starved to death easily.
I guess you had to be there to understand. The other thing I never quite understood was why Leyte?
Only for those unfamiliar with maps of the Southwest pacific circa 1944.
Not a WWII war in the pacific expert by any means but, the first thought that occurred to me is, the people who claim the Philippine Islands were not of strategic importance might want to consult with the Japanese Imperial Army about that subject because it’s pretty damned obvious the Imperial Japanese disagreed with that assessment. As did the US Pacific Command.
So, on that subject, I will defer to the military leaders on both sides of that war who obviously disagreed with that assessment.