Have you seen "The Pacific?" As much as I respect the people in the European theater, the pacific theater was substantially worse. The environmental, cultural and logistical considerations were all a step beyond what the guys in Europe had to deal with. If you haven't seen it, DVR it and watch every episode.
My father was a nurse in North Africa and Italy (he was blinded in one eye). But I had an uncle, by marriage, who was decorated at Tarawa. Recently I found a show specifically focused on Tarawa. It turns out this was the first time the Marines stormed a beach in the war. It was filmed extensively for lessons learned. And they learned a LOT. They started the assault first thing in the morning but didn't take into consideration the coral shelf and the tides. The landing vehicles could only get up to 700 yards. So they were dumping marines off who then had to wade through 3 feet of water 700 yards while taking rounds and mortars. A complete shit show. By mid morning, the commander in charge called a halt and told the marines who made it that they had to bunker down for a day/night, at least. They had two kinds of boats, the bigger ones that needed something like 4 feet of water and smaller ones that needed a foot or two. They took the bigger boats to 700 yards and then shuttled the guys into the smaller boats to reach shore. The family doesn't know the details but my uncle apparently pulled two wounded guys, while under fire, back to the landing vehicle, saving their lives.
Some islands were steaming jungles. Some islands were barren rock. The people hated the Americans. The Japanese fought until they died, there were few surrenders. Food was awful, lots of diseases and infections due to the hot and damp weather. Any supplies had to be shipped in. They didn't run into happy people in Caratan, Holland or Paris. They weren't given wine, cheese and bread. Instead, they witnessed women killing their kids and then committing suicide. Just horrific by any standard.