I'd rather have flown in the European Theatre. Many many more places to land if you are in trouble:
- Average distance between airfields was probably under 20 miles between Spain and Moscow.
- LOTS of cleared fields between the airfields.
- LOTS of people concentrated in a comparatively small area. A town cannot be that far away. (Granted, you may not be picked up by the side of your choice...)
- LOTS of people listening to radios (or with telephones) available to fetch help.
In Afrika, in was not that hard to land away from a city (and airbase) - and be faced with an unpleasant or impossible walk to aid.
In the vast Paciifc, finding land, much less an airfield, could be a major challenge. Survival at sea, was not at all certain. Even in areas that were being combed for survivors, many people were just... missed, and never came home. Small, jungly islands were not necessarily a bargain either.
Then, we can discuss the out-of-plane amenities. Pearl Harbor was beautiful; Guadalcanal (or New Guinea or Saipan or Tinian or any of a score of Pacific airbases) were hot, dirty, disease-ridden with no towns, no entertainment except what was brought in (and there was never enough to go around). Or the "splendor" of sharing a cramped officer billet in the bowles of an aircraft carrier...
North Afrika was only a little better in the way of amenities.
But to be based in England... to return from a mission, shower, and flit out to a pub; to go to the Theatre or the British Museum in London... that surely makes Europe the best choice.
(None of this, of course, takes into account mission types, aircraft types, combat types, flying weather, etc.
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