Final answer:
The strategy of "island hopping" allowed the US to gradually move across the Pacific, capturing and utilizing each island as a base for the takeover of the next, disrupting Japanese communications and transportation routes.
Step-by-step explanation:
The strategy of "island hopping" enabled the United States to turn the Japanese tide in the Pacific and advance to within striking distance of the Japanese home islands by gradually moving across the Pacific, capturing and utilizing each newly captured island as a base for the takeover of the next island. The goal was to increase American air strength and achieve air superiority over the home islands, which would allow for strategic bombing and future amphibious assaults. By bypassing certain island strongholds and isolating others, the US forces disrupted Japanese communications and transportation routes, essentially starving the Japanese defenders into submission or irrelevance.