2. The U.S. lost 400K+ soldiers, with 300K of them being from the European front. How did they lose more in Europe when the U.S. involvement was shorter than the Pacific and far less brutal?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4026633&forum_id=2#36431656)

1. The allied fleet would have had to sail all the way down past Spain, through Gibraltar, and back up to France. That would have given the Germans pleanty of advanced warning and get ready for the attack. Instead, they did a fast, straight shot across the British channel. No time for the Germans to figure out what they were doing. Also the allies were trying to convince the nazis that the invasion was coming in Greece, I.e. as far away from the actual invasion as possible.

2. Casualty RATES were much higher in the pacific, but Europe was a much larger theater. Far more troops and man-days of fighting occurred in europe.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4026633&forum_id=2#36431680)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Dragoon

During planning stages, the 1942 operation was known as "Anvil", to complement Operation Sledgehammer, at that time the code name for the invasion of Normandy. Subsequently, both plans were renamed. Sledgehammer became Operation Overlord, and Anvil becoming Operation Dragoon. The original idea of invading southern France had come in 1942 from General George Marshall, the U.S. Army Chief of Staff. It was supported by Joseph Stalin at the Tehran Conference in late 1943. In discussions with Franklin D. Roosevelt, Stalin advocated for the operation as an inherent part of Overlord, preferring to have the Allies in the far west instead of at an alternative landing in the Balkans, which he considered to be in his zone of influence.[13] Marshall insisted that the operation be included in the strategic planning, and Roosevelt found it unpalatable to cancel the operation.[14]

Operation Dragoon was controversial from the time it was first proposed. The American military leadership and its British counterparts disagreed on the operation. Winston Churchill argued against it on the grounds that it diverted military resources that were better deployed for Allied operations in Italy. Instead, he favored an invasion of the oil-producing regions of the Balkans.[15] Churchill reasoned that by attacking the Balkans, the Allies could deny Germany petroleum, forestall the advance of the Red Army, and achieve a superior negotiating position in post-war Europe, all at a stroke.[15][16][17]

When first planned, the landings were to take place simultaneously – Overlord in Normandy and Anvil in the south of France. It soon became clear that a dual landing was impossible to conduct with the forces available. The expansion of Overlord from a three- to a five-division front required many additional LSTs, which would have been needed for Anvil. Another Allied amphibious landing, in Italy at Anzio had gone badly. All of these resulted in the postponing of Anvil by the Allies.[15][16][18]

After the landing at Normandy, a revival of Anvil became increasingly attractive to Allied planners. The Normandy ports had insufficient capacity to handle Allied supply needs and French generals under Charles de Gaulle pressed for a direct attack on southern France with participation of French troops. These factors led to a reconsideration of the plan. Despite Churchill's objections, the operation was authorized by the Allied Combined Chiefs of Staff on 14 July, then renamed Dragoon on 1 August. The landing was scheduled for 15 August.[15][16][16][19]

Churchill and his chiefs of staff had opposed Dragoon in favour of reinforcing the campaign in Italy; by capturing Trieste, landing on the Istria Peninsula and moving through the Ljubljana gap into Austria and Hungary. Then on August 4 Churchill proposed that Dragoon (less than two weeks away) should be switched to the coast of Brittany. Eisenhower, supported by Roosevelt who (with his 1944 election campaign four months away) opposed diverting large forces to the Balkans, stood firm on the agreed plan despite long harangues from Churchill on August 5 and 9.[20]

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4026633&forum_id=2#36432167)

2. The European War was a much larger war over more territory with bigger armies. Pacific combat was intense, but naval warfare is relatively lower-casualty and the land battles were over small islands where at most a few tens of thousands of troops could fight at once.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4026633&forum_id=2#36432293)

Also several tens of thousands died in the air campaign.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4026633&forum_id=2#36432452)