The Arctic convoys of World War II travelled from the United Kingdom and the United States to the northern ports of the Soviet Union - Archangel and Murmansk. There were 78 convoys between August 1941 and May 1945 (although there were two gaps with no sailings between July and September 1942, and March and November 1943). About 1400 merchant ships delivered vital supplies to the Soviet Union. 85 merchant vessels and 16 Royal Navy warships (2 cruisers, 6 destroyers, 8 other escort ships) were lost. The Germans lost a number of vessels including one battlecruiser, three destroyers and at least 30 U-boats as well as a large number of aircraft.

Convoys

At first, the convoys sailed from Iceland but after September 1942 they assembled and sailed from Loch Ewe in Scotland. The route was around occupied Norway to the Soviet ports and was particularly dangerous due to the proximity of German air, submarine and surface forces and also because of the severe weather.

Each convoy had two name-number identifiers, PQ <number> or JW <number> for the journey to Russia, and QP <number> or RA <number> for the return journey, except for the first convoy which was codenamed "Dervish".

The "Dervish" convoy assembled at Hvalfjörður in Iceland and sailed on 21 August 1941. It arrived at its destination, Archangelsk, ten days later. The convoy was relatively small and consisted of only six merchant ships: Lancastrian Prince, New Westminster City, Esneh, Trehata, the elderly Llanstephan Castle, the fleet oiler Aldersdale and the Dutch freighter Alchiba. The Commodore was Captain JCK Dowding RNR. The escorts comprised the ocean minesweepers HMS Halcyon, Salamander and Harrier, the destroyers HMS Electra, Active and Impulsive and the anti-submarine trawlers HMS Hamlet, Macbeth and Ophelia. As evidence of Churchill's astute mastery of propaganda, on board Llanstephan Castle were two journalists and the artist, Felix Topolski.

Four particular convoys are notable:

On 30 May, 1942, the surviving ships of Convoy PQ-16 arrived, most ships to Murmansk and 8 ships to Archangelsk; the convoy was such a success in terms of the war stores delivered that the Germans made greater efforts to disrupt the following convoys. The Heavy Lift Ships from PQ17 including Empire Elgar stayed at Archangel and Moltovosk unloading convoys for over 14 months

In July 1942, convoy PQ-17 was ordered to scatter following reports that German battleships and cruisers had sailed to intercept the convoy. However, although the German ships were part of Rösselsprung, they were merely changing port and abandoned their sortie the morning after the dispersal order was given. Only 11 of the 36 merchant ships in the convoy succeeded in running the gauntlet of U-boats and German bombers.

The Battle of the Barents Sea: In December 1942, German surface forces, including the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper and pocket battleship Lützow sailed to intercept convoy JW51B. The German force was driven off by a combined force of destroyers and cruisers.

The Battle of the North Cape: In December 1943, convoy JW55B was attacked by the Scharnhorst. HMS Duke of York and her escorts sank the battlecruiser in a night action.

Strategic impact

The Arctic convoys caused major changes to naval dispositions on both sides, which arguably had a major impact on the course of events in other theatres of war. As a result of early raids by destroyers on German coastal shipping and the Commando raid on Vaagso, Hitler was led to believe that the British intended to invade Norway again. This, together with the obvious need to stop convoy supplies reaching Soviet Russia, caused him to direct that heavier ships, centred on the battleship Tirpitz, be sent to Norway. The Channel Dash was partly undertaken for this reason.

As a "fleet in being", Tirpitz and the other German capital ships tied down British resources which might have been better used elsewhere, for example combating the Japanese in the Indian Ocean. The success of Gneisenau and Scharnhorst in 1941 had demonstrated the potential German threat. However, as the air gap over the North Atlantic closed, Huff-Duff (radio triangulation equipment) improved, airborne centimetric radar was introduced and convoys received escort carrier protection, the scope for commerce raiding diminished.

Aside from an abortive attempt to interdict PQ12 in March 1942 and a raid on Spitzbergen in September 1943, Tirpitz spent most of World War II in Norwegian fjords. She was penned in and repeatedly attacked until she was finally sunk in Tromsø fjord on 11 November 1944 by the RAF. The other Kriegsmarine capital ships never got to Norway (eg. Gneisenau), were chased off, or were sunk by superior forces (eg. Scharnhorst). In particular, the unsuccessful attack on convoy JW-51B (the Battle of the Barents Sea), where a strong German naval force failed to defeat a British escort of cruisers and destroyers, infuriated Hitler and led to the strategic change from surface raiders to submarines. Some capital ships were physically dismantled and armament used in coastal defences. Towards the end of the war the material significance of the supplies was probably not as great as the symbolic value hence the continuation - at Stalin's insistence - of these convoys long after the Soviets had turned the German land offensive.

The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nuclear attacks during World War II against the Empire of Japan by the United States of America under US President Harry S. Truman. On August 6, 1945, the nuclear weapon "Little Boy" was dropped on the city of Hiroshima, followed on August 9, 1945 by the detonation of the "Fat Man" nuclear bomb over Nagasaki. They were the only instances of the use of nuclear weapons in warfare.

In estimating the number of deaths caused by the attacks, there are several factors that make it difficult to arrive at reliable figures: inadequacies in the records given the confusion of the times, the many victims who died months or years after the bombing as a result of radiation exposure, and the pressure to either exaggerate or minimize the numbers, depending upon political agenda. That said, it is estimated that as many as 140,000 had died in Hiroshima by the bomb and its associated effects, with the estimate for Nagasaki roughly 74,000.In both cities, the overwhelming majority of the deaths were those of civilians.

The role of the bombings in Japan's surrender, as well as the effects and justification of them, has been subject to much debate.

On August 15, 1945 Japan announced its surrender to the Allied Powers, signing the Instrument of Surrender on September 2 which officially ended World War II. Furthermore, the experience of bombing led post-war Japan to adopt Three Non-Nuclear Principles, which forbids Japan from nuclear armament.

The attack on Pearl Harbor (or bombing of Pearl Harbor) was a naval battle and surprise attack on the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor on Oahu, Hawaii, carried out by naval forces of the Empire of Japan.

It was launched on the morning of Sunday, December 7, 1941 (Hawaii time) by the Combined Fleet's Carrier Striking Task Force against the United States Pacific Fleet and other U.S. armed forces stationed at the harbor and on the other side of Oahu. The attack spurred the U.S. into a declaration of war, and the United States officially entered World War II the next day. The War in the Pacific effectively began at this point.

American casualties amounted to 2403 dead and 1178 wounded. 188 aircraft were destroyed and five battleships, one minelayer, and three destroyers were sunk or severely damaged. By contrast, Japan's losses were 64 dead, one captured, 29 aircraft, and five midget submarines. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt addressed the U.S. Congress the next day, he famously stated that December 7 is "a date which will live in infamy."

The intent of the pre-emptive strike was to protect Japan's move into Singapore and the Dutch East Indies, executed to secure her access to natural resources (mainly oil), by neutralizing the U.S. Pacific Fleet (in the fashion predicted by war plans on both sides). The Japanese high command was certain any attack on British colonies would inevitably bring the U.S. into the war. By contrast, President Roosevelt had moved the fleet to Hawaii to deter Japanese aggression against China, or European colonies in Asia.

The Austrian resistance to the Nazi rule that started with the Anschluss in 1938 had a prehistory of socialist and communist activism against the era of Austrofascism from 1934. These activists, limited primarily to adherents of the political far left, operated in isolation from the Austrian mainstream during the war years. One prominent activist was Josef Plieseis. Other strands of Austrian resistance included Catholics and monarchists. However, it is notable that several Austrian nationalists, some of them even with fascist symapthies, also resisted, opposed to the destruction of the Austrian state.

Austrian society has had an ambivalent attitude both toward the Nazi government from 1938 to 1945 and the few that actively resisted it. Since large portions of Austrian society either actively or tacitly supported the Nazi regime, the Allied forces treated Austria as a belligerent party in the war and maintained occupation of it after the Nazi capitulation. On the other hand, the Moscow Declaration labeled Austria as a free and democratic society before the war, and considered its capture an act of liberation.

The Axis occupation of Greece during World War II (Greek: Η Κατοχή, I Katochi, meaning "The Occupation") began in April 1941 after the German invasion of Greece. It lasted until the German withdrawal from the mainland in October 1944. In some cases, such as in Crete and other islands, German garrisons remained in control until May or even June 1945.

The Kingdom of Italy had initially invaded Greece in October 1940, and after their failure to conquer Greece, the German Führer Adolf Hitler turned his military focus to the southern Balkans. A rapid German Blitzkrieg campaign followed in April 1941, and by the middle of May, Greece was under joint occupation by three Axis powers: Nazi Germany, the Kingdom of Italy and the Kingdom of Bulgaria.

The occupation brought about terrible hardships for the Greek civilian population. Over 300,000 civilians died from starvation, thousands more through reprisals, and the country's economy was ruined. At the same time Greek Resistance, one of the most effective resistance movements in Occupied Europe, was formed. These resistance groups launched guerilla attacks against the occupying powers and set up large espionage networks, but by late 1943 began to fight amongst themselves. When liberation came in October 1944, Greece was in a state of crisis, which soon led to the outbreak of civil war.

The Baedeker Blitz or Baedeker raids were a series of Vergeltungsangriffe (retaliatory raids) German bombing raids on English cities in response to the bombing of the erstwhile Hanseatic League city of Lübeck during the night from 28/29 March 1942 during World War II.

The Baedeker raids were conducted by the German Luftwaffe Luftflotte 3 in two periods between April and June 1942. They targeted relatively unimportant strategically but picturesque cities in England. The cities were reputedly selected from the German Baedeker Tourist Guide to Britain, meeting the criterion of having been awarded three stars, hence the English name for the raids. Baron Gustav Braun von Sturm, a German propagandist is reported to have said on 24 April 1942 following the first attack, "We shall go out and bomb every building in Britain marked with three stars in the Baedeker Guide."[2] (The Baedeker Guide actually gives and has always given only up to two stars).

The cities attacked were:

First period

Exeter (April 23 and 24; May 3)

Bath (April 25 and April 26)

Norwich (April 27 and April 29)

York (April 28)

Second period, following the bombing of Cologne

Canterbury (May 31; June 2 and June 6)

Across all the raids on these five cities a total of 1,637 civilians were killed and 1,760 injured, and over 50,000 houses were destroyed.[2] Some noted buildings were destroyed including York's Guildhall and Bath's Assembly Rooms, but on the whole most escaped — the cathedrals of Norwich, Exeter and Canterbury included. The German bombers suffered heavy losses for minimal damage inflicted, and the Axis' need for reinforcements in North Africa and Russian Front meant further operations were restricted to hit-and-run raids on coastal towns by a few Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighter-bombers.

Several other raids are sometimes included under the Baedeker title, although only a few aircraft were involved in each and damage was not extensive.[3] These raids were all on East Anglian locations.

Bury St Edmunds

Cambridge

Great Yarmouth

Ipswich

Balkans Campaign

Annexation of Albania

Albania's territorial integrity was confirmed at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, after U.S. President Woodrow Wilson dismissed a plan by the European powers to divide Albania amongst its neighbours. With the complete collapse of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires after World War I, the Albanians looked to Italy for protection against enemies. After 1925, however, Benito Mussolini sought to dominate Albania. In 1928 Albania became a kingdom under Zog I, a clan chief and former prime minister. Zog failed to stave off Italian ascendancy in Albanian internal affairs. In April 1939 Mussolini's troops occupied Albania, overthrew Zog, and annexed the country.

Greco-Italian War

The Greco-Italian War, lasting from October 28, 1940 to April 30, 1941, was a part of World War II. The Italians invaded Greece, but were repulsed and driven back into Albania. Due to the success of the Greek counteroffensive, Germany was forced to intervene in April 1941, invading Yugoslavia and Greece.

Invasion of Yugoslavia

The Invasion of Yugoslavia (also known as Operation 25) began on April 6, 1941 and ended with the occupation and dismemberment of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, some parts of Croatia, and in Syrmia the puppet Independent State of Croatia was set up by Germany and Italy; in Serbia and Banat a puppet Serbian state was also set up by Germany; in Montenegro a puppet Independent State of Montenegro was set up by Italy.

Battle of Greece

The German Invasion of Greece - code-named Unternehmen Marita (Operation Marita) by Germany - was the direct result and continuation of the Greco-Italian War. On April 6, 1941, the German Army invaded northern Greece, while other elements launched an attack against Yugoslavia. Breaking through the Yugoslav lines in southern Yugoslavia allowed Germany to send reinforcements to the battlefields of northern Greece. The German army out-flanked the Greek Metaxas Line fortifications and, despite the assistance provided by a British expeditionary corps, set out to capture the southern Greek cities. The Battle of Greece ended with the German entry into Athens and the capture of the Peloponnese, although about 40,000 Allied soldiers were evacuated to Crete, prompting one of the largest airborne attacks in the history of warfare: Operation Merkur, or the Battle of Crete.

Bulgarian intervention

On April 6, 1941, despite having officially joined the Axis Powers, the Bulgarian government maintained a course of military passivity during the initial stages of the invasion of Yugoslavia and the Battle of Greece. As German, Italian, and Hungarian troops crushed Yugoslavia and Greece, the Bulgarians remained on the side-lines. The Yugoslav government surrendered on April 17. The Greek government was to hold out until April 30. On April 20, the period of Bulgarian passivity ended. The Bulgarian Army entered the Aegean region. The goal was to gain an Aegean Sea outlet in Thrace and Eastern Macedonia and much of eastern Serbia.The so called Vardar Banovina was divided between Bulgaria and Italians wich occupied West Macedonia.

Operation Merkur

On May 20, 1941, German paratroopers were dropped over the airfields of northern Crete to occupy the island. They were met by heavy resistance from Allied forces and the local Cretan population but eventually the defenders were overwhelmed by the tactically superior German forces. However, the loss of so many paratroopers forced the Wehrmacht Supreme Command to reconsider its airborne warfare doctrine.

Aftermath

By June 1, 1941, all of Albania, Yugoslavia and Greece was under Axis control. Greece was placed under triple occupation, and Yugoslavia was dissolved and occupied. Germany had gained a significant strategic advantage: direct access to the Mediterranean. The Allied High Command feared that Crete and Greece would be used as "springboard" for an invasion of British Egypt or Cyprus. However, any plans for a large-scale invasion of Egypt and Palestine were abandoned when Operation Barbarossa commenced on June 22.

The Resistance

Throughout the remainder of the war, active Greek and Yugoslav resistance movements forced Germany and her allies to garrison hundreds of thousands of soldiers permanently in the two countries, denying them to the other fronts. Especially after 1943, the threat of an Allied invasion and the activities of the partisans necessitated large-scale counter-insurgency operations, involving several divisions, including elite Panzer and Gebirgsjäger units.

The Dodecanese campaign

A brief flare-up occurred after the Italian surrender in 1943, when a race developed between the British and the Germans to secure the Italian-occupied and strategically important Dodecanese Islands. The Germans quickly succeeded in disarming the Italian garrison of Rhodes, but the British were successful in occupying the islands of Samos, Leros and Kos. However, the Germans were quickly able to launch aerial and naval attacks, and, using special forces, to occupy the islands.

The Battle of Aachen was a battle in Aachen, Germany that took place in October 1944 in World War II. At the time of this battle, there were only about 20,000 civilians living there, the remainder of some 160,000 inhabitants (1939 census) that had been evacuated by the German commander Gerhard von Schwerin to protect them from Allied attacks. When von Schwerin contemplated surrender to protect the city's artifacts from air raids, Hitler had him removed. Hitler then sent about 5,000 Volkssturm to defend the city, commanded by Gerhard Wilck.

The American commanders decided to besiege the city, and cut it off from supply and other essentials. However, the Germans had a different view. The city was important in German history, being the coronation site of Charlemagne, and the home of the Holy Roman Empire (later called Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation), or what Hitler deemed the "First Reich". Moreover, this was the first major German city to face invasion, so Hitler ordered that the city be held at all costs. Hitler deemed that "it was necessary to hold the line at Aachen in order to ensure the survival of the Third Reich." (line 13, pg 25; Zaloga, J Steven, The Siegfried Line 1944-45 (Battles on the German frontier), Osprey Publishing, 2007)

Meanwhile, the US Ninth Army had been maneuvering north and south of the city, but eventually realized the Aachen garrison was a potential threat. The commanders decided to take the city directly. However, within the city they faced murderous urban warfare, advantageous to the Germans who were on their own ground and knew the city well. The American troops in the hardest fighting included the 2nd and 3rd Battalions of the 26th Infantry Regiment of the 1st Division, supported by the U.S. 745th Tank Battalion. From the north, the 30th Division attacked.

However, the 30th Division took more than 2,000 casualties in a matter of days, and elements of the 29th Division were forced to join the fight. Eventually, the city was taken at a cost of 5,000 casualties on both sides, with an additional 5,600 Germans taken prisoner. Franz Oppenhoff was appointed by the Allies as the new Mayor of Aachen, but he was soon shot by Werwolf partisans spreading terror among the Germans desiring to collaborate with the Allies.

Operation Market Garden (September 17-September 25, 1944) was an Allied military operation in World War II. Its tactical objectives were to secure a series of bridges over the main rivers of the German-occupied Netherlands by large-scale use of airborne forces together with a rapid advance by armoured units along the connecting roads, for the strategic purpose of allowing an Allied crossing of the Rhine river, the last major natural barrier to an advance into Germany. The operation was initially successful with the capture of the Waal bridge at Nijmegen on September 20, but was a failure overall as the final Rhine bridge at Arnhem was not taken and the British 1st Airborne Division was destroyed in the battle, despite holding on far longer than estimated before the implementation. The Rhine would remain a barrier to the Allied advance until the Allied Offensives in March 1945.

The Battle of Badung Strait was a naval battle of the Pacific campaign of World War II, fought on the night of 19 February – 20 February 1942 in Badung Strait between the American-British-Dutch-Australian Command (ABDA) and the Imperial Japanese Navy. In the engagement, the four Japanese destroyers, defeated an Allied force that outnumbered and outgunned them, escorting two transports to safety and sinking the Dutch destroyer Piet Hein. The engagement demonstrated the Japanese Navy's considerable superiority over the Allies in night fighting.

A battalion of the 48th Infantry Division of the Imperial Japanese Army landed on Bali on 18 February 1942.

Admiral Doorman's naval forces were scattered around Indonesia, but the invasion of Bali could not be ignored — it would give the Japanese an airbase within range of the ABDA naval base at Surabaya — so he sent in all available ships. The short notice gave no time to concentrate his ships; accordingly several Allied forces were to attack the Japanese.

The first Allied vessels to engage were the submarines USS Seawolf and HMS Truant. Both attacked the Japanese convoy on 18 February but did no damage and were driven off by depth charges from Japanese destroyers. Later that day twenty planes of the United States Army Air Forces attacked the convoy but succeeded only in damaging the transport Sagami Maru.

The Japanese were aware that their invasion convoy was likely to be attacked again, so they retreated north as soon as possible. The cruiser Nagara and the destroyers Wakaba, Hatsushimo and Nenohi were well away and took no part in the action. The last ships to leave were the two transports, each escorted by two destroyers. Sasago Maru was escorted by Asashio and Oshio; the heavily damaged Sagami Maru was escorted by Michishio and Arashio.

The first Allied group, consisting of the cruisers HNLMS De Ruyter and HNLMS Java and the destroyers USS John D. Ford, USS Pope, and HNLMS Piet Hein, sighted the Japanese in Badung Strait at about 22:00, and opened fire at 22:25. No damage was done in this exchange of fire and the two Dutch cruisers continued through the strait to the northeast, to give the destroyers a free hand to engage with torpedoes. Then Piet Hein, Pope and John D. Ford came into range. At 22:40 a Long Lance torpedo from Asashio hit 'Piet Hein, sinking the Dutch destroyer immediately. Asashio and Oshio then exchanged gunfire with Pope and John D. Ford, forcing the two American destroyers to retire to the southeast instead of following the cruisers to the northeast.

In the darkness, Asashio and Oshio mistook each other for enemy ships and fired on each other for several minutes, without any damage.

About three hours later the second group of ABDA ships — the cruiser HNLMS Tromp and the destroyers USS John D. Edwards, USS Parrott, USS Pillsbury, and USS Stewart — reached Badung Strait. At 01:36 Stewart, Pillsbury and Parrott launched torpedoes but did no damage. Then Oshio and Asashio sortied again and there was another exchange of gunfire. Tromp was hit by eleven 5-inch shells from Asashio, severely damaging her (she later had to return to Australia for repairs), and hit both Japanese destroyers, killing four men on Asashio (she suffered only slight damage) and seven on Oshio.

Arashio and Michishio had been ordered by Admiral Kubo to turn back and at about 02:20 they joined the battle. Michishio was hit by shells from Pillsbury, John D. Edwards and Tromp, killing thirteen of her crew and wounding 83. She lost speed and had to be towed after a battle. Both groups of ships turned away and the engagement was over.

The third ABDA group — seven torpedo boats — arrived in Badung Strait at about 06:00, but did not encounter any Japanese ships.

The battle was a significant victory for the Japanese. Lieutenant Commander Gorō Yoshii of Asashio and Commander Kiyoshi Kikkawa of Oshio had shown great bravery and skill. They had driven off a much larger Allied force, sunk the destroyer Piet Hein and severely damaged the cruiser Tromp, had sustained little damage themselves, and had protected their transport ships.

Bali's garrison of 600 Indonesian militia offered no resistance to the Japanese and its airfield was captured intact. The Japanese continued their conquest of the Dutch East Indies with the capture of Timor on 20 February – 23 February. The ABDA forces engaged at Badung Strait were decisively defeated in the battle of the Java Sea on 1 March 1942, in which the Dutch cruisers Java and De Ruyter were sunk and Admiral Doorman was killed. The Tromp evaded this fate, for she was withdrawn to Australia to repair damage suffered at Badung Strait. The destroyer Stewart was repaired in Soerabaia, where she was next captured by the Japanese and put to their service as the P-102 patrol vessel.

The Battle of Berlin was one of the final battlesof the European Theatre of World War II. In what was known to the Soviets as the "Berlin Offensive Operation", two massive Soviet army groups attacked Berlin from the east and south. The battle lasted from late April 1945 until early May. It was one of the bloodiest battles in history. Before the Battle for Berlin was over, German dictator Adolf Hitler and many of his followers committed suicide and he ordered that his body be burned. The city's defenders surrendered on May 2. However, fighting continued to the north-west, west and south-west of the city until the end of the war in Europe on May 8 (May 9 to the USSR).

Battle in Berlin

The forces available to Weidling for the city's defence included several severely depleted Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS divisions, in all about 45,000 men. These divisions were supplemented by the police force, boys in the compulsory Hitler Youth, and the Volkssturm. Many of the 40,000 elderly men of the Volkssturm had been in the army as young men and some were veterans of World War I. The commander of the central district, SS Brigadeführer Wilhelm Mohnke, who had been appointed to this position by Hitler, had over 2,000 men under his command.

Weidling organized the defences into eight sectors designated 'A' through to 'H' each one commanded by a colonel or a general, but most had no combat experience.To the west of the city was the XX Infantry Division. To the north of the city was the IX Parachute Division To the north-east of the city was the Panzer Division Müncheberg. To the south-east of the city and to the east of Tempelhof Airport was the XI SS Panzergrenadier Division Nordland. The reserve, XVIII Panzergrenadier Division, was in Berlin's central district.

Berlin's fate was sealed, because the decisive stages of the battle were fought outside the city, but the resistance inside continued. By the 23 April some of Soviet General Vasily Chuikov's rifle units had crossed the Spree and the Dahme south of Köpenick and by the 24 April were advancing along with Katukov's leading tanks were advancing towards Britz and Neukölln. Some time after midnight a corps of the 5th Shock Army crossed the Spree close to Treptow Park. At dawn on the 24 April the LVI Panzer Corps still under Weildling's direct command counter attacked, but were severely mauled by the 5th Shock Army, which was able to continue its advance around mid day. Meanwhile the first large Soviet probe into the city was put into operation. Kataukov's 1st Guard Army attacked across the Teltow Canal. At 06:20 a bombardment by 3,000 guns and heavy mortars began (a staggering 650 pieces of artillery per one kilometer of front). At 07:00 hours the first Soviet battalions were across and they were followed by tanks around 12:00 shortly after the first of the pontoon bridges were completed. By the evening Treptow Park was in Soviet hands and they had reached the S-Bahn ring railway.

While the fighting raged in the south east of the city, between 320 and 330 French volunteers commanded by Brigadeführer Gustav Krukenberg and organized as Sturmbataillon (assault battalion) "Charlemagne" were attached to XI SS Panzergrenadier Division Nordland. They moved from the SS training ground near Neustrelitz to the centre of Berlin through the western suburbs which apart from unmanned barricades across the Havel and Spree were devoid of fortifications or defenders. Of all the reinforcements ordered to Berlin that day only this Sturmbataillon arrived.

On 25 April, Krukenberg was appointed as the commander Defence Sector C which included the Nordland Division, whose previous commander Joachim Ziegler was relieved of his command the same day. The arrival of the French SS men bolstered the Nordland Division whose Norge and Danmark regiments had been decimated in the fighting. Just midday as Krukenberg reached his command, the last German bridgehead south of the Teltow Canal was being abandoned.

The location of Neukölln

On 26 April Soviet combat groups of the 8th Guards Army and the 1st Guards Tank Army fought their way through the southern suburbs of Neukölln towards Tempelhof Airport which was located just inside the S-Bahn defensive ring. Defending Sector D was Panzer Division Müncheberg. This division, down to its last dozen tanks and thirty APCs had been promised replacements for battle losses but only stragglers and Volkssturm were available to fill the ranks. The Soviets advanced cautiously using flamethrowers to overcome defensive positions. By dusk the Soviet T-34 tanks had reached the airfield, only six kilometres (four miles) south of Führerbunker, where they were checked by stiff German resistance. The Müncheberg Division managed to hold the line until the afternoon of the next day, but this was the last time that they were able to check the Soviet advance for more than a few hours.

With Neukölln heavily penetrated by Soviet combat groups Krukenberg prepared fallback positions for Sector C defenders around Hermannplatz. He moved his headquarters into the opera house. The two understrength German divisions defending the south east were now facing five Soviet armies. From east to west they were the 5th Shock Army, advancing from Treptow Park, the 8th Guards Army and the 1st Guards Tank Army advancing through Neukölln north were checked at Tempelhof Airport and Konev's 3rd Guards Tank Army was advancing from Mariendorf. As the Norland division fell back towards Hermammplatz the French SS and one hundred Hitler Youths attached to their group destroyed fourteen soviet tanks with panzerfausts, and one machine gun position by Halensee bridge managed to hold up any Soviet advances in that area for forty-eight hours. Although these two divisions of Weidling's LVI Panzer Corps could slow the Soviet advance they could not stop it. Krukenberg informed General Hans Krebs Chief of the General Staff of (OKH) that within 24 hours the Nordland would have to fall back to the centre sector Z (for Zentrum).

The Soviet advance to the city centre was along these main axes: from the south east, along the Frankfurter Allee (ending and stopped at the Alexanderplatz); from the south along Sonnen Allee ending north of the Belle Alliance Platz, from the south ending near the Potsdamer Platz and from the north ending near the Reichstag. The Reichstag, the Moltke bridge, Alexanderplatz, and the Havel bridges at Spandau were the places where the fighting was heaviest, with house-to-house and hand-to-hand combat. The foreign contingents of the SS fought particularly hard, because they were ideologically motivated and they believed that they would not live if captured.

On 26 April, Hitler summoned Field Marshall Robert Ritter von Greim from Munich to Berlin to take over command of the Luftwaffe from Goering. While flying over Berlin, von Greim was seriously wounded by Soviet anti-aircraft fire. Hanna Reitsch, his mistress and a crack test pilot, landed von Greim on an improvised air strip in the Tiergarten near the Brandenburg Gate.On the same day, German General der Artillerie Helmuth Weidling was appointed commander of the Berlin Defense Area. Hitler had ordered that Weidling be executed by firing squad only four days earlier on 22 April. This was due to a misunderstanding concerning a retreat order issued by Weidling as commander of the LVI Panzer Corps. Weidling had been appointed commander of the LVI Panzer Corps on 20 April. Weidling replaced Oberstleutnant Ernst Kaether as commander of Berlin. Only one day earlier, Kaether had replaced Generalleutnant Helmuth Reymann. Reymann had the position since March.

Battle for the Reichstag

At some point on 28 April or 29 April, General Gotthard Heinrici, Commander-in-Chief of Army Group Vistula, was relieved of his command. Heinrici disobeyed Hitler's direct orders to hold Berlin at all costs and to never order a retreat. As a result, Heinrici was replaced by General Kurt Student. General Kurt von Tippelskirch was named as Heinrici's interim replacement until Student could arrive and assume control. Some references says that Student was captured by the British and never arrived. Whether von Tippelskirch or Student or both took command, the rapidly deteriorating situation that the Germans faced, meant that Army Group Vistula coordination of the armies under its nominal command during the last few days of the war were of little significance.

Also on 28 April, General Hans Krebs, Chief German General Staff, made his last telephone call from the Führerbunker. He called General Wilhelm Keitel at the new Supreme Command Headquarters in Fuerstenberg. Krebs told Keitel that, if relief did not arrive within 48 hours, all would be lost. Keitel promised to exert the utmost pressure on Generals Wenck and Busse. Meanwhile, Martin Borman wired to German Admiral Karl Dönitz: "Reich Chancellery (Reichskanzlei) a heap of rubble." Borman was the head of the Nazi Party Chancellery (Parteikanzlei) and Hitler's private secretary. Later on 28 April, Hitler learned of Himmler's contacts with Count Folke Bernadotte in Luebeck. Himmler had asked Bernadotte to convey a peace proposal to US General Dwight D. Eisenhower. Enraged at Himmler's duplicity, Hitler ordered von Greim and Reitsch to fly to Dönitz's headquarters at Plön. Von Greim was ordered to arrest the "traitor" Himmler. During the night of 28 April, General Wenck reported to the German Supreme Army Command in Fuerstenberg that his XII Army had been forced back along the entire front. This was particularly true of XX Corps which had been able to establish temporary contact with the Potsdam garrison. According to Wenck, no attack on Berlin was now possible. This was even more so as support from the IX Army could no longer be expected.

In the early hours of the 29 April the Soviets crossed the Moltke bridge and started to fan out into the surrounding streets and buildings. Initially the soviets were unable to bring forward artillery, as the combat engineers had not had time to strengthen the bridge or build an alternative. The only form of heavy weaponry available to the assault troops were individual katyusha's lashed to shot sections of railway lines. The 150th had a particularly hard fight capturing the heavily fortified Ministry of the Interior building. Lacking artillery they had to clear it room by room with grenades and sub-machine guns.

At 04:00 hours on 29 April, in the Führerbunker, General Wilhelm Burgdorf, Goebbels, Krebs, and Bormann witnessed and signed the last will and testament of Adolf Hitler. Hitler dictated the document to Traudl Junge, shortly after he had married Eva Braun.

In the south east at dawn of the 29 April the Soviets pressed on with its assault. After very heavy fighting they managed to capture the Gestapo headquarters on Prinz-Albrechtstrasse, but a Waffen SS counter-attack forced the Soviets to withdraw from the building.[46]To the south west Chukiov's 8th Guards Army attacked north across the Landwehr canal into the Tiergarten.

On 29 April, von Greim and Reitsch flew out from Berlin in an Arado Ar 96 trainer. Fearing that Hitler was escaping in the plane, troops of the Soviet 3rd Shock Army which was fighting its way through the Tiergarten, tried to shoot the Arado down. The Soviet troops failed in their efforts and the plane took off successfully.[48][49] Later that evening, Krebs contacted General Alfred Jodl (Supreme Army Command) by radio: "Request immediate report. Firstly of the whereabouts of Wenck's spearheads. Secondly of time intended to attack. Thirdly of the location of the IX Army. Fourthly of the precise place in which the IX Army will break through. Fifthly of the whereabouts of General Rudolph Holste's spearhead."

In the early morning of 30 April, Jodl replied to Krebs: "Firstly, Wenck's spearhead bogged down south of Schwielow Lake. Secondly, XII Army therefore unable to continue attack on Berlin. Thirdly, bulk of IX Army surrounded. Fourthly, Holste's Corps on the defensive."

At 06:00 on the 30 April the Soviet launched an attack from there across Königsplatz towards the Reichstag. For the Soviets, Reichstag was the symbol of the Third Reich and one that they wanted to capture before the May Day parade in Moscow. The German entrenchments in front of the Reichstag defended by accurate fire from 88 mm guns two kilometres away on the Berlin Zoo flak tower, prevented a successful daylight assault. So for the rest of the day ninety Soviet artillery pieces, some as large as 203mm howitzers, as well as katyusha rocket launchers, bombarded the Reichstag and its defensive trenches, while other assault groups continued to capture the buildings of the diplomatic quarter to the north of Königsplatz.

During the morning Mohnke informed Hitler the centre would be able to hold for less than two days. Later that morning, Weidling informed Hitler in person that the defenders would probably exhaust their ammunition that night. He again asked Hitler for permission to attempt a breakout through the encircling Red Army lines, which Hitler finally gave. That afternoon, Hitler and Braun committed suicide. Their bodies were cremated close to the bunker remaining loyal staff, such as Hitler's valet. In accordance with Hitler's last will and testament, Admiral Karl Dönitz became the "President of Germany" (Reichspräsident) in the new Flensburg Government, and Joseph Goebbels became the new Chancellor of Germany (Reichskanzler).

As the perimeter shrank the and the surviving defenders fell back on the centre they became concentrated. By now there were about 10,000 German soldiers in the city centre, which was being assaulted from all sides. One of the other main thrusts was along Wilhelmstrasse on which the Air Ministry built of reinforced concrete was pounded by large concentrations of Soviet artillery. The remaining German Tiger tanks of the Hermann von Salza battalion took up positions in the east of the Tiergarten to defend the centre against the 3rd Shock Army (which although heavily engaged around the Reichstag was also flanking the area by advancing through the northern Tiergarten) and the 8th Shock Army advancing through the south of the Tiergarten. These Soviet forces had effectively cut the sausage shaped area held by the Germans in half and made an escape to the west for those German troops in the centre much more difficult.

Because of the smoke dusk came early to the centre of Berlin. At 18:00 hours, while Weidling and his staff finalized their breakout plans in his headquarters in the Bendlerblock, under cover of a heavy artillery barrage, three regiments of the Soviet 150th Rifle Division, closely supported by tanks, assaulted the Reichstag. All the windows were bricked up, but they managed to force the main doors and entered the main hall. The German garrison, of about 1,000 defenders – a mixture of sailors, SS and Hitler Youth – fired down on the Soviets from above, turning the main hall into a medieval style killing field. Suffering many casualties the Soviets started to work their way up through the building, clearing each room with grenades and sub-machine gun fire. The Soviets claimed that they hoisted the Red Flag on the top of the Reichstag at 22:50, however the military historian Antony Beevor has suggested that this may have been an exaggeration as "Soviet propaganda was fixated with the idea of the Reichstag being captured by 1 May". Whatever the truth the fighting inside the Reichstag raged throughout the night and throught the morning, until late into the afternoon when about the last 300 Germans combatants surrendered. A further 200 defenders were dead and another 500 were already hors de combat lying wounded in the basement many wounded before the final assault had started.

At about 04:00 on 1 May, Krebs talked to General Chuikov commander of the Soviet 8th Guards Army, informing him of Hitler's death and about a general surrender, but they could not agree terms because the Soviets insisted it had to be unconditional and Krebs said that he was not authorised to agree to that. In the afternoon, Goebbels and his wife, Magda, poisoned their children. At about 20:00, Goebbels and his wife, left the bunker and close to the entrance bit on a cyanide ampule and either shot themselves at the same time, or were given a coup de grâce immediately afterwards by the SS guard detailed to dispose of their bodies. At 21:00, Borman, the rest of the entourage, and several guards tried to break out from the Reich Chancellery (a few chose suicide as an alternative). For a brief period after Hitler's suicide, Goebbels was Germany's Reichskanzler. After Goebbels' own suicide, Reichspräsident Admiral Karl Dönitz appointed Ludwig von Krosigk as Reichskanzler. The headquarters of the Dönitz government were located around Flensburg, along with Mürwik, near the Danish border. Accordingly, the short-lived (23 days only) Dönitz administration was referred to as the Flensburg government.

Breakout and surrender

General Helmut Weidling (left) among captured German generals on May 2, 1945

On the night of 1/2 May the most of the remnants of the Berlin garrison attempted to break out of the city centre in three different directions. Only those that went west through the Tiergarten and crossed the Charlottenbrücke (a bridge over the Havel) into Spandau succeeded in breaching Soviet lines. However only a handful of those who survived the initial breakout made it to the lines of the Western Allies - most were either killed or captured.

Early in the morning of 2 May the Soviets captured the Reich Chancellery. The military historian Antony Beevor points out that as most of the German combat troops had left in the breakouts the night before, the resistance must have been far less than that inside the Reichstag.

General Weidling surrendered with his staff at 06:00 hours. He was taken to see General Vasily Chuikov at 8:23 am. Weidling agreed to order the city's defenders to surrender to the Soviets. Per Chuikov's and Soviet General Vasily Sokolovsky's direction, Weidling put his order to surrender in writing.

The 350-strong garrison of the Zoo flak tower finally left the building. There was sporadic fighting in a few isolated buildings where some SS still refused to surrender. The Soviets simply reduced such buildings to rubble. Beevor infers that most Germans, both soldiers and civilians, were grateful to receive food issued at Red Army soup kitchens. The Soviets went house to house and rounded up anyone in a uniform including firemen and railway-men and marched them all eastwards as prisoners of war.

Battle of Halbe

To the south of Berlin, during the battle of Berlin and for a number of days afterwards, the German IX Army fought a desperate action to break out of the pocket which they were in so that they could link up with the German XII Army and then to cross the river Elbe and surrender to the Americans.

About 25,000 German soldiers and several thousand civilians succeeded in breaking out of the Halbe pocket. The casualties on both sides were very high. There are about 30,000 Germans buried in the cemetery at Halbe. About 20,000 soldiers of the Red Army also died trying to stop the breakout; most are buried at a cemetery next to the Mark-Zossen road. These are the known dead, but the remains of more who died in the battle are found every year so the total of those who died will never be known. Nobody knows how many civilians died but it could have been as high as 10,000.

Capitulation

The fighting did not finish with the capitulation of the City of Berlin. The German forces which had been fighting against the three Soviet fronts continued to resist up to the end of the War in Europe.

The German III Panzer Army and the German XXI Army to the north of Berlin retreated westwards, they were eventually pushed into a pocket 20 miles (32 km) wide that stretched from the Elbe to the coast. To their west was the Montgomery's 21st Army Group (which on May 1 broke out of its Elbe bridghead and had raced to the coast capturing Wismar amd Lübeck, to their east Rokossovsky's 2nd Belorussian Front and to the south was the American Ninth Army which had pentrated as far east as Ludwigslust and Schwerin. On the night of the 2/3 May Gemenral Hasso von Manteuffel commander of the III Panzer Army and Kurt von Tippelskirch commander of the XXI Army surrendered to the Americans. Von Saucken's II Army that had also been fighting north east of Berlin in the Vistula Delta surrendered to the Soviets on 9 May.

The Wenck's XII Army and the remnants of the Busse's IX Army, both south west of Berlin, retreated westwards, many of them crossing the Elbe and surrendering to the Americans, those who had not captured or killed, were taken into captivity on 9 May by the Soviets immediately after the cessation of hostilities.

The Army Group Centre retreated south west towards Czechoslovakia, the majority of the 1st Ukrainian Front disengaged from the battle of Berlin and turned south to engage in the Prague Offensive, the last major combat operation of the European War, in which Czechoslovakia and its capital Prague were liberated and Army Group Centre, deserted by its commanding officer the newly promoted Field Marshal Ferdinand Schörner, was forced to capitulate a few days after the general German capitulation on 8 May.

The Battle of Bir Hakeim (May 26, 1942 - June 11, 1942) is a World War II battle following the Afrika Korps' 1942 campaign. It was fought between the German/Italian Panzer Army Africa and the 1st Free French Brigade. The German commander was Generaloberst Erwin Rommel and the French commander was General Marie Pierre Koenig. The Free French Brigade's 16 days resistance delayed the offensive (but see below) and gave the then retreating British Eighth Army enough time to escape from Rommel and regroup at El Alamein.

The Battle of the Bismarck Sea was a battle in the South West Pacific Area (SWPA) during World War II, in which planes of the United States Fifth Air Force and the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), attacked a Japanese convoy carrying troops to Lae. Most of the task force was destroyed, and Japanese troop losses were extremely high.

Background

On December 23, 1942, the Japanese high command decided to transfer about 105,000 troops from China and Japan to Lae in New Guinea to reinforce their forces there. This would allow the Japanese to fall back from their defeat at the Battle of Guadalcanal, which they ordered evacuated the following week. The troops were needed near Lae, where an Allied offensive was expected.

Relocating such a large force was a great burden on Japanese shipping capability, but the high command considered it a military necessity. By late February 1943, the 20th and 41st divisions had been safely transported to Wewak. Next, the 51st Division was to be transported from the major Japanese base at Rabaul to Lae, a perilous maneuver as Allied air power in the area was very strong, especially in the Vitiaz Strait through which the ships would have to pass.

On February 28 the convoy assembled for the task, comprising eight destroyers and eight troop transports with an escort of approximately 100 fighter aircraft departed from Simpson Harbour in Rabaul. The commanding officer of the 51st Division, Lieutenant-General Hidemitsu Nakano, was aboard the destroyer Yukikaze, while Rear Admiral Kimura Masatomi, the head of the operation, was on a troop transport, Desron 3.

Allied air forces, under the air commander SWPA, Major-General George Kenney, and based in Allied territory on New Guinea, had been preparing for such an eventuality. In particular, the crews of specially modified USAAF B-25 Mitchells and RAAF Bristol Beaufighters had been practising attacks on shipping. The Mitchell crews were developing a new technique called "skip bombing": after flying only a few dozen feet above the sea towards their targets, they would release their bombs, which would then skip across the surface.

The battle

The convoy, moving at a top speed of seven knots, was not detected for several days due to tropical storms which struck the Solomon and Bismarck Seas between February 27 and March 1. However, at about 3:00 p.m. on March 1 the crew of a patrolling B-24 Liberator bomber spotted the convoy north of Cape Hollman. U.S. heavy bombers were sent to the location but failed to locate the convoy.

At about 10:00 a.m. on March 2, another Liberator found the convoy, and clear skies allowed several flights of U.S. B-17 Flying Fortress bombers to attack and sink up to three merchant ships, including the Kyokusei Maru. A B-17 was seriously damaged by a New Britain-based Mitsubishi Zero fighter, and the crew was forced to take to their parachutes. The Japanese pilot machine-gunned some of the B-17 crew members as they descended, and attacked others in the water after they landed.

Out of 1,500 troops being transported by the Kyokusei Maru, 800 were rescued from the water by the destroyers Yukikaze and Asagumo. These two destroyers, being faster than the convoy since its speed was dictated by the slower transports, broke away from the group to disembark the survivors at Lae. The destroyers would resume their escort duties the next day. The convoy, without the troop transport and two destroyers, was attacked again on the evening of March 2, with one transport sustaining minor damage.

PBY Catalina flying boats from No. 11 Squadron RAAF continued to trail and occasionally bomb the convoy over the night of March 2, and at about 3:25 a.m. on March 3, when the convoy was within range of the air base at Milne Bay, Bristol Beaufort torpedo bombers from No. 100 Squadron RAAF took off. However, due to bad weather only two Beauforts found the convoy and neither scored any hits.

The convoy was now rounding the Huon Peninsula, bringing it into clearer conditions. A force of 90 Allied aircraft took off from Port Moresby and headed for Cape Ward Hunt; simultaneously 22 RAAF Douglas Bostons set off to attack the Japanese fighter base at Lae, reducing the convoy's air cover. Attacks on the base continued throughout the day.

At 10:00, 13 B-17s reached the convoy and bombed from medium altitude, causing the ships to disperse, and prolonging the journey.

Then 13 Bristol Beaufighters from No. 30 Squadron RAAF approached at low level, to give the impression they were Beauforts making another torpedo attack. The ships turned to face them and the Beaufighters were then able to inflict maximum damage on the ships' anti-aircraft guns, bridges and crews, during strafing runs with their four 20 mm (0.787 in) nose cannons and six wing-mounted .303 in (7.7 mm) machine guns.

Immediately afterwards, 13 USAAF Mitchells bombed from about 2,500 ft. Then 12 Mitchells made a "skip bombing" attack, reportedly claiming 17 hits. By this time half of the transport ships were sunk or sinking. As the Beaufighters and Mitchells expended their munitions, some USAAF A-20s joined the attack. Another five hits were claimed by B-17s from higher altitudes.

While the attack on the ships proceeded, 28 US P-38 Lightnings provided top cover, and 20 Japanese fighters were shot down for the loss of three Lightnings. Two were from the 39th Fighter Squadron: the aces Bob Faurot and Hoyt Eason were both killed in action. During the afternoon, further attacks from Mitchells and RAAF Bostons followed.

All seven of the remaining transports were sunk about 100 km southeast of Finschhafen, along with the destroyers Shirayuki, Arashio, and Tokitsukaze. Four of the destroyers picked up as many survivors as possible, and then retired to Rabaul. The fifth destroyer, Asagumo, was sunk in a subsequent strike as it was picking up survivors from the Arashio.

Following orders from Kenney, reportedly in retaliation for the shot-down bomber crew being machine-gunned as they descended, from the evening of March 3 until March 5, Allied patrol boats and planes attacked Japanese rescue vessels, as well as survivors from the sunken vessels on life rafts and swimming or floating in the sea.

Aftermath

The battle was a disaster for the Japanese. Out of 6,900 troops who were badly needed in New Guinea, only about 800 made it to Lae. The Australian War Memorial states that 2,890 Japanese soldiers and sailors were killed.

"A merciful providence guarded us in this great victory," said Douglas MacArthur in one of his communiqués. He used the victory to request five additional U.S. divisions and 1,800 aircraft in preparation for his landings in northern New Guinea.

Battle of Britain is the name commonly given to the effort by the German Luftwaffe to gain air superiority over the Royal Air Force (RAF), before a planned sea and airborne invasion of Britain (Operation Sealion) during the Second World War. Neither Hitler nor the Wehrmacht believed it possible to carry out a successful amphibious assault on the British Isles until the RAF had been neutralized. Secondary objectives were to destroy aircraft production and ground infrastructure, to attack areas of political significance, and to terrorize the British people with the intent of intimidating them into seeking an armistice or surrender.

British historians date the battle from 10 July to 31 October 1940, which represented the most intense period of daylight bombing. German historians usually place the beginning of the battle in mid-August 1940 and end it in May 1941, on the withdrawal of the bomber units in preparation for the attack on the USSR. The failure of Nazi Germany to destroy Britain's air force, or to break the spirit of the British government or people, is considered the Third Reich's first major defeat. Some historians have argued no invasion could have succeeded; given the massive superiority of the Royal Navy over the Kriegsmarine, Sealion would have been a disaster. They argue the Luftwaffe would have been unable to prevent decisive intervention by RN cruisers and destroyers, even with air superiority.

The Battle of Britain was the first major battle to be fought entirely by air forces. It was the largest and most sustained bombing campaign yet attempted, and the first real test of the strategic bombing theories developed since the previous World War.

The Battle of Cape Esperance, also known as the Second Battle of Savo Island and, in Japanese sources, as the Sea Battle of Savo Island took place October 11 – 12, 1942, and was a naval battle of the Pacific campaign of World War II between the Imperial Japanese Navy and United States (U.S.) Navy. The battle was the third major naval engagement during the Guadalcanal campaign and took place at the entrance to the strait between Savo Island and Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.

On the night of October 11 Japanese naval forces in the Solomon Islands area, under the command of Gunichi Mikawa, sent a major supply and reinforcement convoy to their forces on Guadalcanal consisting of two seaplane tenders and six destroyers. The convoy was commanded by Japanese Rear Admiral Takatsugu Jojima. At the same time but in a separate operation, three heavy cruisers and two destroyers under the command of Rear Admiral Aritomo Gotō were to bombard the Allied airfield on Guadalcanal (called Henderson Field by the Allies) with the object of destroying Allied aircraft and the airfield's facilities.

Shortly before midnight on October 11, a U.S Navy force of four cruisers and five destroyers, under the command of U.S. Rear Admiral Norman Scott, intercepted Gotō's force as it approached Savo Island near Guadalcanal. Taking the Japanese by surprise, Scott's warships sank one of Gotō's cruisers and one of his destroyers, heavily damaged another cruiser, mortally wounded Gotō, and forced the rest of Gotō's warships to abandon the bombardment mission and retreat. During the exchange of gunfire, one of Scott's destroyers was sunk and one cruiser and another destroyer were heavily damaged. In the meantime, the Japanese supply convoy successfully completed unloading at Guadalcanal and began its return journey to the Japanese naval base at the Shortland Islands without being discovered by Scott's force. Later on the morning of October 12, four Japanese destroyers from the supply convoy turned-back to assist Gotō's retreating, damaged warships. Air attacks by Allied aircraft from Henderson Field sank two of these destroyers later that day.

In spite of Scott's victory in the action, the battle had little immediate, strategic implications. Just two nights later two Japanese battleships approached Guadalcanal unopposed and bombarded and almost destroyed Henderson Field as more Japanese reinforcements were successfully delivered to the island.

The Battle of Cape Matapan was a World War II naval battle fought off the Peloponnesian coast of Greece from March 27 to March 29, 1941. A combined force of British Royal Navy and Royal Australian Navy ships under the command of the British Admiral Andrew Cunningham intercepted and sank or severely damaged those of the Italian Regia Marina, under Admiral Angelo Iachino. The battle, or at least its opening actions, is also known as the Battle of Gaudo in Italy.

The Battle of Cisterna took place during World War II, on January 29, 1944, near Cisterna, Italy, as part of the battle of Anzio that followed Operation Shingle.

During this battle, the 1st, 3rd, and 4th US Army Ranger battalions, the 83rd Chemical Mortar Battlion, and the 2nd Battalion of the 509th Parachute Infantry Regiment, which had been brigaded as the 6615th Ranger Force (Provisional), attempted to capture the town of Cisterna, an objective which the US 3rd Infantry Division had failed to take.

The Rangers attempted a night infiltration behind German lines into the town of Cisterna. They moved in the darkness along a drainage ditch in column formation. Although they were able to bypass numerous German positions, at first light they were still short of their objective and needed to cross open ground for the final portion of the approach. At this point the Rangers were attacked by strong German forces including at least seventeen German Panzer IV tanks. The 1st Battalion commander, Major Dobson, personally knocked out one tank by shooting the commander with his pistol, climbing atop the tank, and dropping a white phosphorus grenade down the hatch. Two other tanks were captured by Rangers, but then knocked out by other Rangers who did not know they had been captured. Despite fierce fighting, there was little chance of success once the Rangers were attacked on the open ground. German units put Ranger prisoners in front of their tanks and commanded other Rangers to surrender. Eventually 761 of 767 Rangers were lost. The exact number of killed, wounded and POW is unknown, although historian Carlo D'Este estimated well over 400 Rangers were captured. German casualties reached a similar level. The town remained in German hands until May 1944, and the Ranger forces within Italy were subsequently disbanded. Ranger units continued to serve in northern Europe (spearheading D-Day) and in the Pacific theatre of operations.

William O. Darby served as the American Ranger Force commander during this engagement; subsequently, he was assigned to command of the 157th Infantry Regiment of the 45th Infantry Division, and then to the 10th Mountain Division. He was killed in action on April 30, 1945, and was the only US officer of WW2 honored with a posthumous promotion.

The Battle for Corregidor was the culmination of the Japanese campaign for the conquest of the Philippines. The fall of Bataan in April 9, 1942 ended all organized opposition by the U.S. Army Forces – Far East (USAFFE) to the invading Japanese forces on Luzon in the northern Philippines. The island bastion of Corregidor, with its network of tunnels and formidable array of defensive armament, along with the fortifications across the entrance to Manila Bay, was the remaining obstacle to the 14th Japanese Imperial Army of Lieutenant General Masaharu Homma. The Japanese had to take Corregidor; as long as the island remained in American hands, they would be denied the use of the Manila Bay, the finest natural harbor in the Orient.

The Battle of Crete (German Luftlandeschlacht um Kreta; Greek Μάχη της Κρήτης) was a battle during World War II on the Greek island of Crete. The battle began on the morning of 20 May 1941, when Nazi Germany launched an airborne invasion of Crete under the code-name Unternehmen Merkur (Operation MERCURY). Allied forces defended the island.

After one day of fighting, none of the objectives had been reached and the Germans had suffered appalling casualties. During the next day, through miscommunication and the failure of Allied commanders to grasp the situation, the Maleme airfield in western Crete fell to the Germans. The loss of Maleme enabled the Germans to fly in heavy reinforcements and overwhelm the Allied forces.

The battle of Crete was unique in three respects: it was the first mainly airborne invasion in history; it was the first time the Allies made significant use of the decipherment of the German Enigma code; and it was the first time invading German troops encountered mass resistance from a civilian population. The battle introduced a revolutionary form of warfare and may have had a significant impact on the course of events of the Second World War. In light of the heavy casualties suffered by the parachutists, Adolf Hitler forbade further airborne operations. Crete was dubbed "the graveyard of the German parachutists". However, the Allies were impressed by the potential of paratroopers and started to build their own airborne divisions.

The Battle of Crucifix Hill was a World War II battle that took place on October 8, 1944, on Crucifix Hill (Hill 239), and a part of the U.S. 1st Division's campaign to seize Aachen, Germany. The battle was part of the Drive to the Siegfried Line. The hill was named after a large crucifix mounted on the top of the hill. The objective of the battle was to gain control of the hill, which was laced with a maze of pillboxes and bunkers, so that the main objective of encircling Aachen could be completed. The hill was held by units of the German 246th Volksgrenadier Division.

The Battle of the Denmark Strait was a World War II naval conflict between ships of the British Royal Navy and the German Kriegsmarine.

The British battleship Prince of Wales and the battlecruiser Hood fought the German battleship Bismarck and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, both of which were attempting to break out into the North Atlantic to destroy Allied merchant shipping.

Less than ten minutes after the British opened fire, a shell from Bismarck struck Hood near her ammunition magazines. The Hood exploded, and sank within 3 minutes with the loss of all but three of her crew.

Prince of Wales continued to exchange fire with Bismarck but suffered serious malfunctions in her main armament. This, combined with the effects of the battle, left most of her main guns unusable and she broke off the engagement.

Bismarck, damaged but still very much operational, declined to chase Prince of Wales and instead headed for the Atlantic along with Prinz Eugen.

The Dieppe Raid, also known as The Battle of Dieppe or Operation Jubilee, during World War II, was an Allied attack on the German-occupied port of Dieppe, Seine-Maritime on the Northern coast of France on August 19, 1942. Over 6,000 infantrymen, predominantly Canadian, were supported by large British naval and Allied air force contingents. The objective was to seize and hold a major port for a short period, both to prove it was possible and to gather intelligence from prisoners and captured materials while assessing the German responses. The raid was also intended to use air power to draw the Luftwaffe into a large, planned encounter.

The raid was generally considered to be an unmitigated tactical disaster, with no major objectives accomplished. 3,623 of the 6,086 men who made it ashore were either killed, wounded, or captured. The Allied air forces failed to lure the Luftwaffe into open battle, and lost 119 planes, while the Royal Navy suffered 555 casualties. The catastrophe at Dieppe may have later influenced Allied preparations for Operation Torch and Operation Overlord.

The Battle of Dražgoše was a Second World War battle between Slovenian partisans and German troops, which took place between January 9 and January 11, 1942, in the village of Dražgoše. This battle was the first direct confrontation of the war between the two.

Fighting numerically superior Germans the partisan Cankar's Battalion (numbering 240 combatants) suffered nine casualties throughout the entire battle, 5 of which were machine gunners and 4 were their assistants. German forces suffered about 160 casualties.

After 3 days of battle, partisans were forced to flee the village. German troops executed 17 male civilians immediately upon securing portion of the village. In the evening of the next day, 18 more male residents who previously escaped but then returned were apprehended and executed, houses were looted and ultimately the village was set on fire. After fire ceased, Germans demolished entire village completely and the remaining villagers were rounded up and sent to concentration camps.

After the end of war Dražgoše has been rebuilt completely.

Two days after battle Germans attacked two partisan platoons on Mošenjska planina. 12 Partisans were dead, 5 wounded. Battle lasted for 13 hours.

The Battle of Dunkirk was the defence and evacuation of the British and Allied forces that had been separated from the main body of the French defences by the German advance.

After the Phoney War, the Battle of France began in earnest on 10 May 1940. The German Army Group A burst through the Ardennes region and advanced rapidly to the west, then turned north in the so-called "sickle cut". To the east, Army Group B invaded and subdued the Netherlands and advanced westward through Belgium.

A series of Allied counterattacks, including the Battle of Arras, failed to sever the German spearhead, which reached the coast on May 20, separating the British Expeditionary Force near Armentières, the French First Army, and the Belgian army further to the north from the majority of French troops south of the German penetration. After reaching the Channel the Germans swung north along the coast, threatening to capture the ports and trap the British and French forces before they could evacuate to Britain. However, in a futile attempt to placate the British government, with the aim of attaining an Anglo-Germanic alliance, Hitler halted these lightly opposed German panzer divisions outside Dunkirk on 24 May. This order allowed the Germans to consolidate their gains and prepare for a southward advance against the remaining French forces. In addition, the terrain around Dunkirk was considered unsuitable for armour, so the destruction of the Allied forces was initially assigned to the Luftwaffe and the German infantry organised in Army Group B.

In World War II, the Battle of France, also known as the Fall of France, was the German invasion of France and the Low Countries, executed from 10 May 1940, which ended the Phoney War. The battle consisted of two main operations. In the first, Fall Gelb (Case Yellow), German armoured units pushed through the Ardennes, to cut off and surround the Allied units that had advanced into Belgium. The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and many French soldiers were however evacuated from Dunkirk in Operation Dynamo. In the second operation, Fall Rot (Case Red), executed from 5 June, German troops outflanked the Maginot Line to attack the larger territory of France itself. Italy declared war on France on 10 June. The French government fled to Bordeaux and Paris was occupied on 14 June. After the French Second Army Group was forced to surrender on 22 June, France capitulated on 25 June. For the Axis, the campaign was a spectacular victory.

France was divided into a German occupation zone in the north and west, a small Italian occupation zone in the southeast and a collaborationist rump state in the south, Vichy France. France remained under German occupation until after the Allied landings in 1944, the Low Countries would be liberated in 1944 and 1945.

The Battle of Greece (also known as Operation Marita, German: Unternehmen Marita)[5] was an important World War II battle which occurred on the Greek mainland and in southern Albania. The battle was fought between the Allied (Greece and the British Commonwealth) and Axis (Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy) forces. With the Battle of Crete and several naval actions, the Battle of Greece is considered part of the wider Aegean component of the Balkans Campaign of World War II.

The Battle of Greece is generally regarded as a continuation of the Greco-Italian War, which began when Italian troops invaded Greece on October 28, 1940. Within weeks the Italians were driven from Greece and Greek forces pushed on to occupy much of southern Albania. In March 1941, a major Italian counterattack failed, and Germany was forced to come to the aid of its ally. Operation Marita began on April 6, 1941, with German troops invading Greece through Bulgaria in an effort to secure its southern flank. The combined Greek and British forces fought back with great tenacity, but were vastly outnumbered and outgunned, and finally collapsed. Athens fell on April 27, however the British Commonwealth managed to evacuate nearly 50,000 troops. The Battle of Greece ended with the fall of Kalamata in the Peloponnese.

Many historians regard the German Campaign in Greece as decisive in determining the course of World War II, maintaining that it fatally delayed the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union. Others hold that the battle had no influence on the launching of Operation Barbarossa. Both German and Allied officials have expressed their admiration for the strong resistance of the Greek soldiers.

The Guadalcanal campaign, also known as the Battle of Guadalcanal, was fought between August 7, 1942 and February 7, 1943 in the Pacific theatre of World War II. This campaign, fought on the ground, at sea, and in the air, pitted Allied forces against Imperial Japanese forces, and was a decisive, strategically significant campaign of World War II. The fighting took place on and around the island of Guadalcanal in the southern Solomon Islands and was the first major offensive launched by Allied forces against the Empire of Japan.

On August 7, 1942, Allied forces, predominantly composed of troops from the United States (U.S.), initiated landings on the islands of Guadalcanal, Tulagi, and Florida in the southern Solomons with the objective of denying their use by Japanese forces as bases to threaten supply routes between the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand. The Allies also intended to use Guadalcanal and Tulagi as bases to support a campaign to eventually isolate the major Japanese base at Rabaul on New Britain. The initial Allied landings overwhelmed the outnumbered Japanese defenders, who had occupied the islands in May 1942, and captured Tulagi and Florida as well as an airfield (later named Henderson Field) that was under construction by the Japanese on Guadalcanal. Surprised by the Allied offensive, the Japanese made several attempts between August and November 1942 to retake Henderson Field on Guadalcanal. These attempts resulted in three major land battles, five large naval battles, and continuous, almost daily, aircraft battles, culminating in the decisive Naval Battle of Guadalcanal in early November 1942, in which the last Japanese attempt to land enough troops to capture Henderson Field was defeated. In December 1942, the Japanese abandoned further efforts to retake Guadalcanal and successfully evacuated their remaining forces from the island by February 7, 1943, leaving the island in Allied hands.

The Guadalcanal campaign marked the first significant strategic combined arms victory by Allied forces over Japanese forces in the Pacific theatre. For this reason, the Guadalcanal campaign is often referred to as a "turning point" in the war. The campaign marked the beginning of the transition by Allied forces from defensive operations to the strategic offensive while the forces of Japan were thereafter forced to cease strategic offensive operations and instead concentrate on strategic defense, culminating in the ultimate defeat of Japan and the end of World War II.

The Battle of Honkaniemi was fought between Finnish and Soviet forces on 26 February 1940. It was the only tank to tank action of the Winter War.

The commander of the Finnish II Corps General Harald Öhquist had attached Jaeger Battalion 3 and the 4th company of the Armoured Battalion to the 23rd Division. The 23rd was responsible for the area around the lake Näykkijärvi, just to the southeast of Viipuri, the second largest town in Finland. The Soviets had managed to create a threatening salient in the area and the commander of the 23rd, Colonel Voldemar Oinonen, decided to counterattack.

The plan was to attack the Soviet salient with four battalions and the 4th Armoured Company. The 4th Armoured Company consisted of 13 Vickers 6-Ton tanks. Of the tanks that were to take part, five were lost before the battle started, mostly to engine failure.

The Soviet 84th Division, which was also preparing to attack on the same day, was supported by T-26 and T-28 tanks.

As the Finnish attack started, at 07:15 in the morning of February 26th, two of the tanks suffered technical failures. The infantry battalions managed to advance some 200 meters before meeting stiff Soviet resistance. Six of the Finnish tanks that managed to engage in the battle were lost and only destroyed three of the opposing Soviet tanks.

The attack was aborted at 10:00 and Finnish forces were withdrawn.

The Battle of Huertgen Forest (German: Schlacht im Hürtgenwald) is the name given to the series of fierce battles fought between U.S. and German forces during World War II in the Hürtgen (also: Huertgen) Forest. The battles took place between September 19, 1944, and February 10, 1945, in a strategically insignificant corridor of barely 50 square miles (129 km²) east of the Belgian–German border.

U.S. commanders’ initial goal was to pin down German forces in the area so as to keep them from reinforcing the front lines further north, between Aachen and the Rur (Roer) River, where the Allies were basically fighting a trench war between a network of fortified towns and villages connected with field fortifications, tank traps, and minefields. A secondary objective may have been to outflank the front line. The Americans' initial objectives were to take Schmidt, clear Monschau, and advance to the Rur. The Germans viciously defended the area for two reasons: It served as staging area for the Ardennes Offensive (what became the Battle of the Bulge) that was already in preparation, and the mountains commanded access to the Schwammenauel Dam[verification needed] (Rurtalsperre Schwammenauel) at the head of the Rur Lake (Rurstausee) which, if opened, would flood low-laying areas downstream and deny any crossing of the river. The Allies only recognized this after several heavy setbacks, and the Germans were able to hold the region until they launched their final major, last-ditch offensive on the Western Front, into the Ardennes.

The Battle of Imphal took place in the region around the city of Imphal, the capital of the state of Manipur in North-East India from March until July 1944. Japanese armies attempted to destroy the Allied forces at Imphal and invade India, but were driven back into Burma with heavy losses. Together with the simultaneous Battle of Kohima on the road by which the encircled Allied forces at Imphal were relieved, the battle was the the turning point of the Burma Campaign, part of the South-East Asian Theatre of World War II.

The Battle of Iwo Jima was fought by the United States and Japan in February and March 1945, during the Pacific Campaign of World War II. The U.S. invasion, known as Operation Detachment, was aimed at capturing the airfields on Iwo Jima.

The battle was marked by some of the fiercest fighting of the campaign. The Imperial Japanese Army positions on the island were heavily fortified, with vast bunkers, hidden artillery, and 11 miles (18 km) of tunnels.[citation needed] The battle was the first American attack on the Japanese Home Islands, and the Imperial soldiers defended their positions tenaciously; of the 22,000 Japanese soldiers present at the beginning of the battle, over 20,000 were killed, and only 216 taken prisoner.

Joe Rosenthal photographed five Marines and a U.S. Navy corpsman raising the U.S. flag atop the 166 meter (546 ft) Mount Suribachi. The photo is actually of the second flag to be raised on the mountain. The first flag was taken as a souvenir by a high ranking Navy Officer. The picture became the iconic image of the battle, and the most reproduced photograph of all time.[2] (Note that Rosenthal's famous photograph was possible because it was the second raising of the flag, after Navy Secretary James Forrestal requested the first flag as a souvenir.)

The Battle of Kiev was a huge encirclement battle in Ukraine during World War II; today it is mentioned as the biggest encirclement battle in history. It lasted from mid-August to September 26, 1941 as part of Operation Barbarossa. In Soviet military history it is referred to as Kiev Defense Operation (???????? ?????????????? ????????), with dates July 7 — September 26, 1941.

Nearly the entire Soviet Southwestern Front of the Red Army was encircled with the Germans claiming 665,000 captured. The German Kiev encirclement was not airtight and small groups of Red Army troops managed to escape the cauldron days after the German trap snapped shut, including Marshall Budyonny, Marshall Timoshenko and Commissar Khrushchev. Nevertheless, the Kiev disaster was an unprecedented defeat for the Red Army, exceeding even the Minsk tragedy of June-July 1941. On 1st September the Southwestern Front numbered 752-760,000 men (850,000 including reserves and rear service organs), 3,923 guns & mortars, 114 tanks and 167 combat aircraft. The ensuing encirclement contained 452,700 men, 2,642 guns & mortars and 64 tanks, of which scarcely 15,000 escaped from the encirclement by 2nd October. Overall the Southwestern Front suffered 700,544 casualties, including 616,304 killed, captured, or missing during the month-long Battle for Kiev. As a result, four Soviet field armies (5th, 37th, 26th, & 21st) consisting of 43 divisions virtually ceased to exist. Like the Western Front before it, the Southwestern Front had to be recreated from scratch.

The 1943 Battle of Kiev took place in the wake of the failed German offensive at Kursk during the Second World War. The Soviets launched their first summer offensive of the war, pushing Erich von Manstein's battered Army Group South back towards the Dniepr River. There Manstein intended to rest and refit his troops, but that was not to be: STAVKA ordered the First and Second Ukrainian Fronts to force crossings of the Dniepr before the Germans could catch their breaths. The First Ukrainian Front, commanded by Nikolai Vatutin, was able to secure bridgeheads north and south of Kiev. His opponent would be the veteran 4th Panzer Army, commanded by Hermann Hoth.

The Battle of Kohima was a critical battle of the Burma Campaign in World War II, fought around the town of Kohima in northeast India from April 4 to June 22, 1944. It marked the limit of the Japanese offensive into India in 1944 and was described as the "Stalingrad of the East".

The battle took place in two stages. From April 3 to April 16, the Japanese attempted to capture Kohima ridge, a feature which dominated the road by which the major British and Indian troops at Imphal were supplied. At this point, the small British force at Kohima was relieved, and from April 18 to June 22, British and Indian reinforcements counter-attacked to drive the Japanese from the positions they had captured. The battle ended on June 22 when British and Indian troops from Kohima and Imphal met at Milestone 109, ending the siege of Imphal.

The Battle of Kollaa was fought from December 7, 1939 - March 13, 1940 in the Ladoga's Karelia, Finland as a part of the Winter War.

Despite having far fewer troops than the Soviets, the Finnish forces (12th division) repelled the Red Army because the Soviets were only prepared to proceed along roads. The Kollaa area had very few roads, all of them guarded by Finnish troops, and the Soviets were not able to proceed cross-country without skis.

Although they stopped the Red Army, the 12th Division suffered heavy losses, with the Battle of Kollaa continuing until the end of Winter War. The Finnish defence came close to collapse at the very end - in fact, the Finnish troops left the main positions on the River Kollaa on March 12, but counter-attacked on March 13.

A memorable quote from the Battle of Kollaa is Major General Hägglund's question, "Will Kollaa hold? (Kestääkö Kollaa)", to which Lieutenant Aarne Juutilainen replied, "Yes it will hold (Kollaa kestää), unless we are told to run."

Legendary sniper Simo Häyhä served in the Kollaa front.

The Battle of Kursk (or Kursk Campaign, July 4 – July 20, 1943), also called Unternehmen Zitadelle by the German Army (Operation Citadel in English), was the last German blitzkrieg offensive on the Eastern Front, and a significant, deliberate defensive battle strategy on the Soviets' part, in the Eastern Theater during World War II. Having good intelligence on Hitler's intentions, the Soviets established and managed to conceal elaborate layered defense works, mine fields, and stage and disguise large reserve forces poised for a tactical and strategic counterattack end game typical of defensive battle plans. Overall, the campaign, which included the famous sub-battle at Prokhorovka, remains the largest armored engagement of all time, and included the most costly single day of aerial warfare in history. The Germans saw the Battle of Kursk as Operation Zitadelle only; the Soviets considered (and Russians today consider) the Battle of Kursk to include Zitadelle and the subsequent Soviet counterattacks, Operation Kutuzov and Operation Polkovodets Rumyantsev.

Though the Germans planned and initiated an offensive strike, the well-planned Soviet defense not only managed to frustrate their ambitions but also enabled the Soviets to follow up the successful defense with counteroffensives—Operation Kutuzov and Operation Polkovodets Rumyantsev—and exhausted the German abilities in the theater, thereby seizing the initiative for the remainder of the war. In that sense it may be seen as “Phase II” of the turning point in the front that began with the German defeat at the Battle of Stalingrad, which aftermath set the table by establishing the Kursk Salient (also known as the Kursk Bulge), the reduction of which was the objective of the German armies entering July. The subsequent counterattacks retook Oryol (August 5), Belgorod (August 5) and Kharkov (August 23), pushing back the Germans across a broad front, the first successful major Soviet summer offensive of the War.

Kursk further demonstrated that the conflict in the East contained the largest scale of warfare in history, in terms of manpower involved. So well designed was the Soviet defensive planning, that when entering the archetypical counterattack phase, the Soviets were able to attack along four separate axes of advance, and execute a planned stop at a phase line, thus avoiding the pitfalls of overextending during the counterattack and earning this battle's deserved place as a model campaign in war college curricula.

The Battle of Leros (Greek: Μάχη της Λέρου) is the central event of the Dodecanese Campaign of the Second World War, and is widely used as an alternate name for the whole campaign. Leros was occupied by British forces on September 15, 1943. The Battle of Leros itself began with the German air attacks on September 26, and culminated in the landings on November 12, ending with the capitulation of the Allied forces four days later.

The Battle of Leyte in the Pacific campaign of World War II was the invasion and conquest of Leyte in the Philippines by the United States and Australian forces and allied Filipino guerrillas under the command of General Douglas MacArthur and waged against the Imperial Japanese Army in the Philippines led by General Tomoyuki Yamashita from 17 October 1944 to 31 July 1945. The battle launched the Philippines campaign of 1944-45 for the recapture and liberation of the entire Philippine Archipelago and to end almost three years of Japanese occupation.

The Battle of Leyte Gulf, also known as the Second Battle of the Philippine Sea, was the largest naval battle in modern history. It was fought in the Pacific Theater of World War II, in the seas surrounding the Philippine island of Leyte from 23 October to 26 October 1944 between the Allies and the Empire of Japan. The Allies commenced the invasion of Leyte in order to cut off Japan from her Southeast Asia colonies, particularly the crucial oil supplies for the Imperial Japanese Navy. The Japanese gathered all their remaining major naval forces in an attempt to repel the Allied troops, but failed to achieve their objective and also suffered heavy losses. The battle was the last major naval engagement of World War II, as the Imperial Japanese Navy never again sailed to battle in such large force, being deprived of their fuel, returning to Japan to sit inactive for the remainder of the war.

The "Battle" of Leyte Gulf was actually a campaign consisting of four interrelated battles: the Battle of the Sibuyan Sea, the Battle of Surigao Strait, the Battle of Cape Engaño and the Battle of Samar.

Leyte Gulf also saw the first use of kamikaze aircraft. A kamikaze hit the Australian heavy cruiser HMAS Australia on 21 October, and organized suicide attacks by the "Special Attack Force" began on 25 October.

The Battle of Makassar Strait was a naval battle of the Pacific campaign of World War II. A fleet of the American-British-Dutch-Australian Command, under the command of Admiral Karel Doorman, was on its way to intercept a Japanese invasion convoy when it was attacked by 37 Japanese dive-bombers from Kendari bound to Surabaya and forced the fleet to retreat.

The ADBA force consisted of the cruisers HNLMS De Ruyter (flagship), HNLMS Tromp, USS Houston, and USS Marblehead escorted by the Dutch destroyers Bankert, Piet Hein, Van Ghent, and the United States destroyers Barker, Bulmer, Edwards, and Stewart.

In early February 1942 these ships were patrolling the Makassar Strait between Borneo and Celebes. An attempt to intercept a Japanese convoy at Kendari on 2 February failed as the convoy had departed. On 4 February 1942 they set out again from Bunda Roads, at Madura island, in search of a large Japanese invasion force reported to be passing through the straits — three cruisers and 18 destroyers escorting invasion transports and other ships, commanded by Rear Admiral Takeo Takagi.

At 09:49, Japanese bombers were sighted to the east by sailors on the ABDA ships. Marblehead was hit by two bombs and damaged by a near miss close to the port bow, killing 15 and wounding 84. Houston was also badly damaged and De Ruyter slightly damaged.

However in the afternoon, the fleet was forced to retreat southward through Lombok Strait to protect the damaged cruisers. The fleet sailed westward further and the American cruiser stopped for repair at Cilacap and the rest continued to Batavia through Sunda Strait.

Operation August Storm, or the Battle of Manchuria began on August 8, 1945, with the Soviet invasion of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo; the greater invasion would eventually include neighboring Mengjiang, as well as northern Korea, southern Sakhalin, and the Kuril Islands. It marked the only military action of the Soviet Union against the Empire of Japan apart from the 1939 Battle of Khalkhin Gol. At the Yalta Conference, it had agreed to Allied pleas to terminate the neutrality pact with Japan and enter the Second World War's Pacific Theater within three months after the end of the war in Europe.

The invasion began on August 8, 1945, precisely three months after the German surrender on May 8. Notably, it began between the droppings of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima (August 6) and Nagasaki (August 9).

Japan's decision to surrender was made after the scale of the Soviet attack on Manchuria, Sakhalin, and the Kuril Islands was known (See Downfall, pg 289), but had the war continued, the Soviets had plans to invade Hokkaidō well before the other Allied invasion of Kyushu.

The Battle of Midway was a naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II. It took place from June 4, 1942 to June 7, 1942, approximately one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea, about five months after the Japanese capture of Wake Island, and six months after the Empire of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor that had led to a formal state of war between the United States and Japan. During the battle, the United States Navy defeated a Japanese attack against Midway Atoll (located northwest of Hawaii) and destroyed four Japanese aircraft carriers and a heavy cruiser while losing a carrier and a destroyer.

The battle was a decisive victory for the Americans, widely regarded as the most important naval engagement of World War II. The battle permanently weakened the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN), particularly through the loss of over 200 naval aviators. Both nations sustained losses in the battle, but industrially outstripped by America, Japan was unable to reconstitute its naval forces while the American shipbuilding program provided quick replacements. Strategically, the U.S. Navy was able to seize the initiative in the Pacific and go on the offensive.

The Japanese plan of attack was to lure America's few remaining carriers into a trap and sink them. The Japanese also intended to occupy Midway Atoll to extend Japan's defensive perimeter farther from its home islands. This operation was considered preparatory for further attacks against Fiji and Samoa, as well as the invasion of Hawaii.

The Midway operation, like the attack on Pearl Harbor that had plunged the United States into war, was not part of a campaign for the conquest of the United States itself, but was aimed at its elimination as a strategic Pacific power, thereby giving Japan a free hand in establishing its Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. It was also hoped that another defeat would force the U.S. to negotiate an end to the Pacific War with conditions favorable for Japan.

The Battle of Modlin took place during the invasion of Poland at the beginning of the Second World War. Modlin Fortress was the headquarters of the Modlin Army until it retreated eastwards. From September 13 to September 29 in the year 1939, it was defended by Polish forces under the command of General Wiktor Thommée against assaulting German units. During that time, the fighting was closely connected with the strategic situation of the Battle of Warsaw.

Among Polish forces defending the fortress was the armoured train 'Śmierć' (death). The Modlin anti-aircraft battery was the one that shot down the most Luftwaffe planes in September. The fortress of Modlin capitulated on September 29, as one of the last Polish units to remain operational during the campaign.

The Battle of Monte Cassino (also known as the Battle for Rome and the Battle for Cassino) was a costly series of four battles during World War II, fought by the Allies with the intention of breaking through the Winter Line and seizing Rome.

In the beginning of 1944 the western half of the Gustav Line was being anchored by Germans holding the Rapido, Liri and Garigliano valleys and certain surrounding peaks and ridges, but not the historic abbey of Monte Cassino, founded in 524 AD by St. Benedict, although they manned defensive positions set into the steep slopes below the abbey walls. On February 15 the monastery, high on a peak overlooking the town of Cassino, was destroyed by American B-17, B-24, B-25, and B-26 bombers. Two days after the bombing, crack German paratroopers poured into the ruins to defend it. From January 17 to May 18, it was assaulted four times by Allied troops, for a loss of over 54,000 Allied and 20,000 German soldiers.

The Battle of Moscow (Russian: ????? ?? ??????, Romanized: Bitva za Moskvu) was the Soviet defense of Moscow and the subsequent Soviet counter-offensive that occurred between October 1941 and January 1942 on the Eastern Front of World War II against Nazi Germany forces. Adolf Hitler considered Moscow, which was the capital of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and the largest Soviet city, to be the primary military and political objective for the Axis forces in their invasion of the Soviet Union. A separate German plan was codenamed Operation Wotan.

The original blitzkrieg invasion plan, which the Axis called Operation Barbarossa, had called for the capture of Moscow within three to four months. However, despite large initial advances, the Wehrmacht was soon slowed by Soviet resistance (in particular during the Battle of Smolensk, which lasted from July through September 1941 and delayed the German offensive towards Moscow for two months). Having secured Smolensk, the Wehrmacht was forced to consolidate its lines around Leningrad and Kiev, further delaying the drive towards Moscow. The Axis advance was finally renewed on September 30, 1941, with an offensive codenamed Operation Typhoon, the goal of which was the capture of Moscow before the onset of winter.

After a successful initial advance leading to the encirclement and destruction of several Soviet armies, the German offensive was stopped by Soviet resistance at the Mozhaisk defensive line, just 120 km (75 mi) from the capital. Having penetrated the Soviet defenses, the Wehrmacht offensive was slowed by weather conditions, with autumn rains turning roads and fields into thick mud that significantly impeded Axis vehicles, horses, and soldiers. Although the onset of colder weather and the freezing of the ground allowed the Axis advance to continue, it continued to struggle in the face of the severe cold and stiffening Soviet resistance.

By early December, the lead German Panzer Groups stood less than 30 kilometers (19 mi) from the Kremlin, and Wehrmacht officers were able to see some of Moscow's buildings with binoculars; but, handicapped by cold and exhausted troops, the Axis forces were unable to make further advances. On December 5, 1941, fresh Soviet Siberian troops, prepared for winter warfare, attacked the German forces in front of Moscow; by January 1942, the Wehrmacht had been driven back 100 to 250 km (60 to 150 mi), ending the immediate threat to Moscow and marking the closest that Axis forces ever got to capturing the Soviet capital.

The Battle of Moscow is usually considered one of the most important battles in the war between the Axis Powers and the USSR, primarily because the Soviets were able to successfully prevent the most serious attempt to capture their capital. The battle was also one of the largest during World War II, with more than a million total casualties. It marked a turning point as it was the first time since the Wehrmacht began its conquests in 1939 that it had been forced into a major retreat. The Wehrmacht had been forced to retreat earlier during the Yelnya Offensive in September 1941 and at the Battle of Rostov (1941) (which led to von Rundstedt losing command of German forces in the East), but these retreats were minor compared to the one at Moscow.

The Battles of Narvik were fought from April 9 until June 8, 1940 as a naval battle in the Ofotfjord and as a land battle in the mountains surrounding the north Norwegian city of Narvik as part of the Norwegian campaign of the Second World War.

The two naval battles in the Ofotfjord on 10 April and 13 April were fought between the British Royal Navy and the German Kriegsmarine, while the two-month land campaign was fought between Norwegian, French, British, and Polish troops against German and Austrian mountain troops, shipwrecked Kriegsmarine sailors and German Fallschirmjäger from 1st battalion of the 1st Regiment, 7th Flieger Division. Narvik provided an ice-free harbor in the North Atlantic for iron ore transported by the railroad from Kiruna in Sweden. Both sides in the war had an interest in securing this iron supply for themselves and denying it to the enemy, setting the stage for one of the first large-scale battles during World War II, since the invasion of Poland.[1]

Prior to the German invasion, British forces had considered Narvik as a possible landing point for an expedition to help Finland in the Winter War or to take control over the Swedish mines. French politicians were also eager to start a second front as far away from France as possible.

The Battle of Neretva also known by the German code-name Fall Weiss (German for "Case White"), and known in Yugoslavia as the Fourth enemy offensive (Serbo-Croatian Četvrta neprijateljska ofenziva) was a German strategic plan for a combined Axis attack launched in early 1943 against the Partisans throughout occupied Yugoslavia, in the fascist puppet Independent State of Croatia, during the Second World War. The offensive took place between January and April 1943.

The Germans aimed to destroy the central command of the Partisan movement, the Central Committee of Communist Party of Yugoslavia, as well as the main Partisan hospital. The Axis rallied nine divisions, six German, three Italian, as well as two Croatian divisions and a number of Chetnik and Ustasha formations. Estimated 150,000 Axis combatants engaged a much smaller partisan force.

The Battle of Normandy was fought in 1944 between Nazi Germany in Western Europe and the invading Allied forces as part of the larger conflict of World War II. Operation Overlord was the codename for the Allied invasion of northwest Europe, which began on June 6, 1944, and ended on August 19, 1944, when the Allies crossed the River Seine. Over sixty years later, the Normandy invasion still remains the largest seaborne invasion in history, involving almost three million troops crossing the English Channel from England to Normandy. Operation Neptune was the codename given to the initial assault phase of Operation Overlord; its mission, to gain a foothold on the continent, started on June 6, 1944 (commonly known as D-Day) and ended on June 30, 1944.

The primary Allied formations that saw combat in Normandy came from the United States of America, United Kingdom and Canada. Substantial Free French and Polish forces also participated in the battle after the assault phase, and there were also contingents from Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Greece, the Netherlands, and Norway.

The Normandy invasion began with overnight parachute and glider landings, massive air attacks, naval bombardments, and an early morning amphibious phase began on June 6. The “D-Day” forces deployed from bases along the south coast of England, the most important of these being Portsmouth. The battle for Normandy continued for more than two months, with campaigns to establish, expand, and eventually break out of the Allied beachheads, and concluded with the liberation of Paris and the fall of the Falaise pocket in late August 1944.

The Battle of Normandy was described thus by Adolf Hitler: “In the East, the vastness of space will... permit a loss of territory... without suffering a mortal blow to Germany’s chance for survival. Not so in the West! If the enemy here succeeds… consequences of staggering proportions will follow within a short time.

The Battle of Okinawa, fought on the Japanese island of Okinawa, was the largest amphibious assault during the Pacific campaigns of World War II. It lasted from late March through June 1945.

The battle has been referred to as the "Typhoon of Steel" in English, and tetsu no ame ("rain of steel") or tetsu no bōfū ("violent wind of steel") in Japanese. The nicknames refer to the ferocity of the fighting, the intensity of gunfire involved, and sheer numbers of Allied ships and armoured vehicles that assaulted the island. Okinawa had a large civilian population, of whom at least 150,000 were killed during the battle, while the Japanese army attempted to defend the island.

Neither side expected Okinawa to be the last major battle of the war, when it in fact was. The Allies were planning to use Okinawa as a staging ground for Operation Downfall, the invasion of the Japanese mainland. However, after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 and the Soviet Union's declaration of war on Japan, Japan surrendered and World War II ended.

The Battle of Peleliu, like the bloody World War II island campaigns before it, was a fight to capture an airstrip on a speck of coral in the Western Pacific. And, as with previous island battles, the Americans would prevail, but at a higher cost than anticipated, against the determined resistance of the Japanese forces.

By the summer of 1944 victories in the Southwest and Central Pacific had brought the war even closer to Japan, with American bombers now able to strike at the Japanese homeland itself. But there was disagreement by the U.S. Joint Chiefs over two proposed strategies to crush the Japanese Empire. One strategy proposed by General Douglas MacArthur called for the recapture of the Philippines, followed by the capture of Okinawa then Formosa for an attack at the Chinese mainland. From there, the eventual invasion of Japan would come. Admiral Chester Nimitz, on the other hand, favored a more direct strategy of bypassing the Philippines, but seizing Okinawa and Formosa as staging areas for the future invasion of Japan's southernmost islands.

As for Peleliu, both commanders' strategies included the invasion of this island, but for different reasons, and the 1st Marine Division had already been chosen to make the assault. To settle this dispute, President Franklin D. Roosevelt traveled to Pearl Harbor to personally meet both commanders and hear their respective arguments. After a review of both positions, MacArthur's strategy was chosen. However, before MacArthur could retake the Philippines, the Palau Islands, Peleliu and Anguar specifically, were thought to be necessary for neutralization and building an airfield to protect his right flank. This turned out not to be necessary at all. What followed was a ferocious battle lasting more than two months and costing over 12,000 lives on both sides. Engaging on Peleliu was the 1st Marine Division, and also the US Army 81st Infantry Division that had already overrun the smaller island of Anguar.

The reduction of the Japanese pocket around Umurbrogol mountain is considered to be the most difficult fight that the US military encountered in the entire Second World War. The 1st Marine Division was severely mauled by casualties on Peleliu, and it remained out of action until the invasion of Okinawa on April 1, 1945.

On the recommendation of Admiral William F. Halsey, Jr., the planned occupation of Yap Island in the Palaus was cancelled. Halsey actually (rightly) recommended that the landings on Peleliu and Anguar be cancelled, too, and their Marines and soldiers be thrown into Leyte Island, instead. But Halsey was overruled by the CINCPAC, Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz.

The Battle of the Philippine Sea, also known as the First Battle of the Philippine Sea, was an air-sea battle of the Pacific campaign of World War II fought between the U.S. Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) on 19 and June 20, 1944, off the Mariana Islands. It was the first major air-sea battle since the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands.

The action proved a disaster for the Japanese forces, who lost almost all their carrier-borne aircraft and a third of the carriers involved in the battle. Particularly notable was that the Japanese suffered heavy losses trying to attack the US fleet, as their offensive force consisted largely of obsolete planes and inexperienced aircrews. They were going up against the US radar-coordinated combat air patrols, with new aircraft and veteran pilots, whose carriers were well screened by numerous new battleships and cruisers. While the air battle raged, US submarines sunk two Japanese fleet carriers. The US counterattack, however, failed to do significant damage in return. By the conclusion of the engagement the aircraft carriers of the IJN had ceased to be an effective fighting force.

The Battle of Rennell Island took place on January 29–30, 1943, and was the last major naval engagement between the United States Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy during the lengthy Guadalcanal campaign in the Solomon Islands campaign during World War II. The battle took place in the South Pacific between Rennell Island and Guadalcanal in the southern Solomon Islands.

In the battle, Japanese naval land-based torpedo bombers, seeking to provide protection for the impending evacuation of Japanese forces from Guadalcanal, made several attacks over two days on United States' (U.S.) warships operating as a task force south of Guadalcanal. In addition to approaching Guadalcanal with the objective of engaging any Japanese ships that might come into range, the U.S. task force was protecting an Allied transport ship convoy that was carrying replacement troops to Guadalcanal. As a result of the Japanese air attacks on the task force, one U.S. heavy cruiser was sunk, a destroyer was heavily damaged, and the rest of the U.S. task force was forced to retreat from the southern Solomons area. Due, in part, to their success in turning back the U.S. task force in this battle, the Japanese were successful in evacuating their remaining troops from Guadalcanal by February 7, 1943, leaving Guadalcanal in Allied hands and ending the battle for the island.

The Battle of Savo Island, also known as the First Battle of Savo Island and, in Japanese sources, as the First Battle of the Solomon Sea, took place August 8–9, 1942, and was a naval battle of the Pacific Campaign of World War II, between the Imperial Japanese Navy and Allied naval forces. The battle was the first major naval engagement of the Guadalcanal campaign.

In the battle, a Japanese warship task force surprised and routed the Allied naval force, sinking one Australian and three American cruisers, while taking only moderate damage in return. The Japanese force consisted of seven cruisers and one destroyer, commanded by Vice Admiral Gunichi Mikawa. In response to Allied amphibious landings in the eastern Solomon Islands, Mikawa brought his task force down "the Slot" to attack the Allied amphibious fleet and its screening force. The screening force consisted of eight cruisers and fifteen destroyers, commanded by British Rear Admiral Victor Crutchley, but only five cruisers and seven destroyers were actually involved in the battle.

As a result of the defeat, the remaining Allied warships and the amphibious force withdrew from the Solomon Islands. This temporarily conceded control of the seas around Guadalcanal to the Japanese. Allied ground forces had landed on Guadalcanal and nearby islands only the day before. The withdrawal of the fleet left them in a precarious situation, with barely enough supplies, equipment, and food to hold their beachhead.

The Battle of the Seelow Heights was one of the last pitched battles of World War II. It was fought over four days, from April 16 until April 19, 1945. Close to one million Soviet soldiers were in action to break through the "Gates to Berlin" which was defended by about 100,000 German soldiers.

This battle is often incorporated into the Battle of the Oder-Neisse of which the Seelow Heights was the sector in which most of the fighting in the overall battle took place, but it was only one of several points along the Oder and Neisse rivers that the Soviets crossed to attack the Germans. The battle of the Oder-Neisse was itself only the first battle in the larger context of the Battle of Berlin.

The Battle of Sevastopol was fought from October 30, 1941 to July 4, 1942 between German forces and the USSR over the main Soviet naval base on the Black Sea during World War II. It is notable in the way that the Germans used many of their heavy (200-800mm range) mortars in the battle.

The Battle of Singapore was fought in the South-East Asian theatre of World War II when the Empire of Japan invaded the Allied stronghold of Singapore. The fighting in Singapore lasted from February 7, 1942 to February 15, 1942.

It resulted in the fall of Singapore — the major British military base in South East Asia — to the Japanese and the largest surrender of British-led military personnel in history. About 80,000 Indian Empire, Australian and British troops became prisoners of war, joining 50,000 taken by the Japanese in the Malayan campaign.

The predominantly ethnic Chinese people of Singapore had long provided material support to China in its war with Japan. This was one of the motivations for the Japanese invasion of Singapore and the later suffering and atrocities inflicted by the Japanese occupation.

The Battle of Smolensk was a major battle of encirclement fought between Army Group Centre's 2nd Panzer Army led by Heinz Guderian and the 3rd Panzer Army led by Hermann Hoth against the Soviet Western Front commanded by Timoshenko, the Soviet Reserve Front commanded by Zhukov, the Soviet Central Front commanded by Kuznetsov, and Soviet Bryansk Front commanded by Yeremenko. Ultimately the 16th, 19th and the 20th Soviet Armies were encircled just to the south of Smolensk but large parts of the 19th Army managed to escape the pocket. As a result of large parts of Soviet soldiers escaping the net, Hitler called off the battles of encirclement as the premier means of defeating the Soviet Union and concentrated on inflicting severe economic damage to the Soviet Union.

The Battle of Stalingrad was a battle between Germany and its allies and the Soviet Union for the Soviet city of Stalingrad (now Volgograd) that took place between August 21, 1942 and February 2, 1943, as part of World War II. It was the turning point of World War II in Europe and was arguably the bloodiest battle in human history, with combined casualties estimated above 1.5 million. The battle was marked by brutality and disregard for military and civilian casualties on both sides. The battle is taken to include the German siege of Stalingrad, the battle inside the city, and the Soviet counter-offensive which, eventually trapped and destroyed the German Sixth Army and other Axis forces around the city.

As a result of the battle, the Axis powers suffered roughly 850,000 casualties and lost a huge amount of supplies and equipment. The Axis forces were never able to fully recover from this loss and were eventually forced into a long retreat out of Eastern Europe, after the great battles of 1943-1944. For the Soviets, who also suffered great losses during the battle, the victory at Stalingrad marked the start of the liberation of the Soviet Union, leading to eventual victory over Nazi Germany in 1945.

Besides being a turning point in the war, Stalingrad was also revealing in terms of the discipline and determination of both the German Wehrmacht and the Soviet Red Army, though this was often maintained by brutal enforcement of commands. The Soviets first defended Stalingrad against a fierce German onslaught. So great were Soviet losses that at times, the life expectancy of a newly arrived soldier was less than a day, yet discipline was maintained: many soldiers sacrificed themselves instead of retreating or being captured. Their sacrifice is immortalized by a soldier of General Rodimstev, about to die, who scratched on the wall of the main railroad station (which changed hands 15 times during the battle) “Rodimstev’s Guardsmen fought and died here for their Motherland (Rodina).”

On the other side, the German Army showed remarkable discipline after being surrounded. It was the first time that it had operated under adverse conditions on such a scale. Short of food and clothing, during the latter part of the siege, many German soldiers starved or froze to death.[2] Yet, discipline and obedience to authority prevailed, until the very end, when resistance no longer served any useful purpose, Generalfeldmarschall Friedrich Paulus obeyed Hitler's orders, against many of Hitler's top Generals counsel and advice, such as Von Manstein, to not attempt to break out of the city before German ammunition, supplies, and food became totally exhausted. Hitler orderd Paulus to stay, and then promoted him to Field Marshal. Hitler, who believed Goering, when Goering said he could supply the German 6th army in Stalingrad, from the air, as the Luftwaffe had successfully done, earlier, when a German Garrison was surrounded in Demyansk for four months by the Red Army, in January of 1942. However, Goering and Hitler failed to see the obvious differences, in terms of the difficulty of supplying a garrison as opposed to supplying the remnants of an embattled and encircled army. By the time Hitler made Paulus a Field Marshal, even he knew Stalingrad was lost and the air lift had failed. Hitler thought that Paulus would commit suicide, the traditional German General's method of surrender, promoting him was a consolatory gesture, and further impetus for Paulus to avoid being taken by the Soviets alive. Paulus would have been the highest ranking German commander to be captured, and that was not acceptable to Hitler. However, Paulus disobeyed Hitler, shortly after being promoted to Field Marshal, saying that as a Christian he could not, in good faith, kill himself. Hitler did not find this reasonable, and openly lambasted Paulus for being the only Field Marshal in German history to surrender alive.

The naval Battle of Taranto took place on the night of 11 November — 12 November 1940 during World War II. The Royal Navy launched the first all-aircraft naval attack in history, flying a small number of aircraft from an aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean and attacking the Italian fleet at Taranto. The effect of the British aircraft on the Italian warships led pundits around the world to predict the end of the "big gun" ship and the rise of naval air-power.

The Battle of Tarawa was a battle in the Pacific Theatre of World War II, largely fought from November 20-23, 1943. It was the second time the United States was on the offensive (the Battle of Guadalcanal had been the first), and the first offensive in the critical central Pacific region. It was also the first time in the war that the United States faced serious Japanese opposition to a U.S. amphibious landing. Previous landings met little or no initial resistance; Tarawa was to be different. The 4,500 Japanese defenders were well-supplied and well-prepared, and they fought almost to the last man, exacting a heavy toll on the American Marines.

The Battle of Tassafaronga is sometimes referred to as the Fourth Battle of Savo Island or, in Japanese sources, as the Battle of Lunga Point.

It was a naval battle fought between United States and Japanese forces on November 29, 1942. The battle was the last in a series of naval battles during the six-months-long Battle of Guadalcanal. The battle occurred in the channel between Guadalcanal and Savo Island, and was named after Tassafaronga on Guadalcanal, a landing point for Japanese supplies on Guadalcanal and the destination of the Japanese destroyer squadron involved in this battle.

In the battle, a US cruiser force was badly mauled by a squadron of Japanese destroyers, led by Japanese Rear Admiral Raizo Tanaka. Against a much heavier American force and without the benefit of radar, Tanaka's ships sunk a cruiser and so badly damaged three others that they were all out of the war for more than nine months, while the Japanese lost but one destroyer.[3] However, the Japanese didn't have the resources to use their victory to gain an upper hand in the battle for Guadalcanal. Thus, although Tassafaronga was a tactical victory for the Japanese, it had little strategic impact.

The Battle of the Aleutian Islands was a struggle over the Aleutian Islands, part of Alaska, in the Pacific campaign of World War II. A small Japanese force occupied the islands of Attu and Kiska but the remoteness of the islands and the difficulties of weather and terrain meant that it took nearly a year for a large U.S. force to eject them. The islands had very little strategic value for either side, but control of the Aleutians would prevent a possible U.S. attack across the Northern Pacific. Similarly, the U.S. feared that the islands would be used as bases from which to launch aerial assaults against the West Coast, and it became a matter of national pride to expel the first invaders to set foot on American soil since the War of 1812. But Japan lacked both a long-range bomber and the resources to establish and operate an air base in the Aleutians.

The battle, overshadowed by the simultaneous Battle of Guadalcanal, is known as the "Forgotten Battle." It is described in mainstream histories as a diversionary attack during the Battle of Midway and was in fact launched simultaneously under the same overall commander, Isoroku Yamamoto. Historians Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully made strong arguments in their 2005 book, Shattered Sword, against the theory that Operation AL was merely a diversion.

The Battle of the Atlantic was the longest continuous military campaign of World War II, running from 1939 right through to the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, and was at its height from mid-1940 through to about the end of 1943. The campaign pitted the German Navy’s surface raiders and U-boats against Allied convoys from North America and the South Atlantic to the United Kingdom and Russia, protected mainly by the British and Canadian navies and air forces, later aided by United States ships and aircraft. The German U-boats were joined by Italian submarines after Italy entered the war in June 1940.

The name ‘Battle of the Atlantic’, first coined by Winston Churchill in 1941, is a partial misnomer for a campaign that began on the first day of the European war and lasted for six years, involved thousands of ships and stretched over hundreds of miles of the vast ocean and seas in a succession of more than 100 convoy battles and perhaps 1,000 single-ship encounters. Tactical advantage switched back and forth over the next six years as new weapons, tactics and counter-measures were developed by both sides. The British and their allies gradually gained the upper hand, driving the German surface raiders from the ocean by the middle of 1941 and decisively defeating the U-boats in a series of convoy battles between March and May 1943. Promising new German submarines arrived in 1945, too late to affect the course of the war.

The Ardennes Offensive (called Unternehmen: Wacht am Rhein (Operation Watch on the Rhine) by the German military (Heeresgruppe B), officially named the Battle of the Ardennes by the U.S. Army, and known to the general public as the Battle of the Bulge), started on December 16, 1944. Wacht am Rhein was supported by subordinate operations known as Bodenplatte, Greif, and Währung. Germany's planned goal for these operations was to split the British and American Allied line in half, capturing Antwerp, Belgium, and then proceeding to encircle and destroy four Allied armies, forcing the Western Allies to negotiate a peace treaty in the Axis Powers’ favor.

The Ardennes offensive was planned in total secrecy, in almost total radio silence. Although Ultra, the Allies’ reading of secret German radio messages, suggested a possible German offensive, and the US Third Army predicted a major German offensive, the attack still achieved surprise. The degree of surprise achieved was compounded by the Allies' overconfidence, their preoccupation with their own offensive plans, poor aerial reconnaissance, and the relative lack of combat contact in the area by the U.S. 1st Army. Almost complete surprise against a weak section of the Allies’ line was achieved during heavy overcast, when the Allies' strong air forces would be grounded. The “bulge” was the salient that the Germans initially put into the Allies’ line of advance, as seen in maps presented in contemporary newspapers.

Most of the American casualties occurred within the first three days of battle, when two of the U.S. 106th Infantry Division’s three regiments were forced to surrender. The Battle of the Bulge was the bloodiest of the battles that U.S. forces experienced in World War II; the 19,000 American dead were unsurpassed by those of any other engagement. For the U.S. Army, the battle incorporated more troops and engaged more enemy troops than any conflict before that time. The German objectives ultimately were unrealized. In the wake of the defeat, many experienced German units were left severely depleted of men and equipment, as German survivors retreated to the defenses of the Siegfried Line.

The Battle of the Coral Sea, fought from May 4-8 May, 1942, with most of the action occurring on May 7 and 8 May was a major naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II between the Imperial Japanese Navy and the United States and Allied fleet. It was the first fleet action in which aircraft carriers engaged each other. It was also the first naval battle in history in which neither side's ships sighted or fired directly upon the other. The battle is considered a tactical victory for Japan since the United States carrier USS Lexington was lost, while Japan only lost the light carrier Shōhō in the battle. At the same time, the battle was a strategic victory for the Allies as the Japanese abandoned their attempt to land troops to take Port Moresby, New Guinea. The engagement ended with no clear victor, but the damage suffered and experience gained by both sides set the stage for the Battle of Midway one month later.

The naval Battle of the Eastern Solomons (also known as the Battle of the Stewart Islands and, in Japanese sources, as the Second Battle of the Solomon Sea took place on 24-25 August 1942 and was the third carrier battle of the Pacific campaign of World War II and the second major engagement fought by the United States Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy during the lengthy Battle of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands campaign. As at Coral Sea and Midway, the ships of the two adversaries were never in direct visual range of each other. Instead, all of the attacks by either side were carried out by either carrier or land-based aircraft.

After several damaging air attacks, the naval surface combatants from both the United States of America (U.S.) and Japan withdrew from the battle area without either side securing a clear victory. However, the U.S. and its allies apparently gained a greater tactical and strategic advantage from the battle than Japan because the Allied forces suffered fewer losses than the Japanese, who lost a significant amount of aircraft and experienced aircrews. Also, Japanese reinforcements intended for Guadalcanal were delayed and eventually delivered by naval warships instead of transport ships, giving the Allies more time to prepare for the Japanese counteroffensive and preventing the Japanese from landing heavy artillery, ammunition, and other logistical supplies that would have significantly assisted their forces in the struggle for the island.

The Battle of the Java Sea was a major naval battle of the Pacific campaign of World War II. Allied navies suffered a series of disastrous defeats at the hand of the Imperial Japanese Navy, in actions over several days in February-March 1942. The American-British-Dutch-Australian Command (ABDA) commander, Admiral Karel Doorman was killed. The aftermath of the battle included a number of smaller actions around Java,including the smaller, but also significant Battle of Sunda Strait. It was the largest surface engagement since the Battle of Jutland in World War I.

The Battle of Kasserine Pass took place in World War II during the Tunisia Campaign. It was, in fact, a series of battles fought around Kasserine Pass, a two-mile-wide gap in the Grand Dorsal chain of the Atlas Mountains in west central Tunisia. The Axis forces involved were primarily from the German-Italian Panzer Army (the redesignated German Panzer Army Africa) led by Field Marshal Erwin Rommel and the Fifth Panzer Army led by General Hans-Jürgen von Arnim. Allied forces involved came mostly from the U.S. Army's II Corps under Major General Lloyd Fredendall, part of British First Army.

Significant as the first large-scale meeting of American and German forces in World War II, the green and untested American troops, who were led in an inept manner by their commander, suffered heavy casualties and were pushed back over fifty miles from their original positions west of Faid Pass in a humiliating rout. The battle has been described as when the amateurs first met the professionals. In the aftermath, the U.S. Army instituted a number of sweeping changes from unit-level organization to the replacing of commanders. When they next met, in some cases only weeks later, the U.S. was considerably stronger.

The Battle of the Komandorski Islands was one of the most unusual engagements of World War II, that took place on 27 March 1943 in the North Pacific area of the Pacific Ocean, near the Komandorski Islands.

When the United States became aware of Japanese plans to send a supply convoy to garrisons on the Aleutian Islands, U.S. Navy ships commanded by Rear Admiral Charles McMorris were dispatched to intercept. The U.S. fleet comsisted of the heavy cruiser Salt Lake City, the old light cruiser Richmond and the destroyers Coghlan, Bailey, Dale and Monaghan.

Unknown to the Americans, the Japanese had chosen to escort their convoy with two heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, and four destroyers commanded by Vice Admiral Boshiro Hosogaya. On the morning of the 27th, the Japanese convoy was intercepted by the U.S. picket line and combat ensued. Due to the remote location of the battle and chance encounter on open ocean, neither fleet had air or submarine assistance, making this the only engagement exclusively between surface ships in the Pacific Theatre, and the last pure gunnery duel in naval history.

The Battle of the Netherlands (Slag om Nederland in Dutch) was part of Case Yellow (Fall Gelb), the German invasion of the Low Countries (Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands) and France during World War II. The battle lasted from 10 May 1940 until 14 May 1940 when the Dutch main force surrendered. Dutch forces continued to resist the Wehrmacht in Zealand until 17 May. Nazi Germany then occupied the Netherlands, the last of Dutch territory was liberated in May 1945. The battle ended after the devastating terror bombing of Rotterdam by the Luftwaffe and the subsequent threat of the Germans to bomb the other large Dutch cities if the Dutch refused to surrender. The Dutch military knew it could not stop the bombers and surrendered to prevent other cities from suffering the same fate.

The Battle of the River Plate (December 13, 1939) was a naval battle in World War II. The German pocket battleship (heavy cruiser) Admiral Graf Spee had been commerce raiding since the start of the war in September. It was found and engaged off the estuary of the River Plate off the coast of Argentina and Uruguay in South America by three smaller Royal Navy (RN) cruisers: HMS Exeter, HMS Ajax and HMS Achilles[1], which was part of the RN's New Zealand Division.

In the ensuing battle, Exeter was severely damaged and forced to retire, while all other ships received moderate damage. Ajax and Achilles then shadowed the Graf Spee which entered the neutral Uruguayan capital Montevideo. After a tense period, the captain of the Graf Spee, Hans Langsdorff scuttled his ship rather than face the overwhelmingly superior British force that he believed had assembled.

Although the actual engagement between the German and Allied forces could be regarded as a German victory in terms of losses, the following actions resulted in the overall battle being an Allied victory.

The Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands, October 26, 1942, sometimes referred to as the Battle of Santa Cruz or in Japanese sources as the Battle of the South Pacific, was the fourth carrier battle of the Pacific campaign of World War II and the fourth major engagement fought between the United States Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy during the lengthy and strategically important Guadalcanal campaign. In similar fashion to the battles of Coral Sea, Midway, and the Eastern Solomons, the ships of the two adversaries were rarely in direct visual range of each other. Instead, almost all attacks by both sides were mounted by carrier or land-based aircraft.

In an attempt to drive Allied forces from Guadalcanal and nearby islands, and end the stalemate which had existed since September 1942, the Imperial Japanese Army planned a major ground offensive on Guadalcanal for October 20-25, 1942. In support of this offensive, and with the hope of engaging Allied naval forces, Japanese carriers and other large warships moved into a position near the southern Solomon Islands. From this location, the Japanese naval forces hoped to engage and decisively defeat any Allied (primarily U.S.) naval forces, especially carrier forces, that responded to the ground offensive. Allied naval forces also hoped to meet the Japanese naval forces in battle, with the same objectives of breaking the stalemate and decisively defeating their adversary.

The Japanese ground offensive on Guadalcanal was defeated by Allied ground forces on October 20-25 in the Battle for Henderson Field. Nevertheless, the naval warships and aircraft from the two adversaries confronted each other on the morning of October 26, 1942, just north of the Santa Cruz Islands. After an exchange of carrier air attacks, Allied surface ships were forced to retreat from the battle area with the loss of one carrier sunk and another heavily damaged. The participating Japanese carrier forces, however, also retreated due to high aircraft and aircrew losses plus significant damage to two carriers. Although an apparent tactical victory for the Japanese in terms of ships sunk and damaged, the loss of many irreplaceable, veteran aircrews by the Japanese provided a long-term strategic advantage for the Allies, whose aircrew losses in the battle were relatively low.

The Battle of the Scheldt, also known as "Battle of the Dikes", was a series of military operations which took place in northern Belgium and southwestern Netherlands during the Second World War from October 2 to November 8 of 1944 (see map).

By September, 1944, it had become urgent for the Allies to clear both banks of the Scheldt estuary in order to open the port of Antwerp to Allied shipping, thus easing logistical burdens in their supply lines stretching hundreds of miles from Normandy eastward to the Siegfried Line. Since the Allied forces had landed in Normandy, France on D-Day, June 6, 1944, the British Second Army had pushed forward into the Low Countries and captured Brussels and Antwerp, the latter with its ports still intact. But the advance halted with the British in possession of Antwerp, while the Germans still controlled the Scheldt Estuary.

Nothing was done about the blocked Antwerp ports during September because most of the strained Allied resources were allocated to Operation Market Garden, a bold plan for a single thrust into Germany which began on September 17. In the meantime, German forces in the Scheldt were able to plan a defense.

In early October, after Market Garden had failed with heavy losses, Allied forces led by the First Canadian Army set out to bring the Antwerp ports under control. But the well-established German defenders staged an effective delaying action. Complicated by the waterlogged terrain, the Battle of the Scheldt proved to be an especially gruelling and costly campaign. Historians have largely ignored it until recent years.

After five weeks of difficult fighting, the First Canadian Army, bolstered by attached troops from several other countries, was successful in winning the Scheldt after numerous amphibious assaults, crossing of canals, and fighting over open ground. Both land and water were mined, and the Germans defended their retreating line with artillery and snipers.

The Allies finally cleared the port areas on November 8, but at a cost of 12,873 Allied casualties (killed, wounded, or missing), half of them Canadians.

Once the German defenders were no longer a threat, it was an additional three weeks before the first ship carrying Allied supplies was able to unload in Antwerp (on November 29, 1944) due to the necessity of de-mining the harbors.

The Battle of Timor (1942–43) occurred on the island of Timor, in the Pacific theatre of World War II. It involved forces from the Empire of Japan, which invaded on February 20, 1942, on one side and Allied personnel, predominantly from Australia and the Netherlands, on the other. Many Timorese civilians and some Portuguese colonists fought with the Allies as creados (guerrillas), or provided food, shelter and other assistance.

Allied soldiers, most of whom were Australian commandos, waged a raiding campaign against the Japanese. They were resupplied by aircraft and vessels, based mostly in Darwin, Australia, about 650 kilometres (400 miles) to the south east, across the Timor Sea.

A whole Japanese division was tied up on Timor for more than six months, preventing its deployment elsewhere. The commandos' campaign lasted until February 10, 1943, when the last Australian soldiers were evacuated, making them the last Allied land forces to leave South East Asia, following the Japanese offensives of 1941–42. The Timorese continued a resistance campaign. For this they paid a heavy price: tens of thousands died as a result of indiscriminate attacks by Japanese forces, as well as other effects of the occupation.

The 1939 Battle of Warsaw was fought between the Polish Warsaw Army (Armia Warszawa) garrisoned and entrenched in the capital of Poland (Warsaw) and the German Army. It started with huge aerial bombardments by the Luftwaffe starting on September 1, 1939.

Land fighting started on September 8, when the first German armoured units reached the Wola area and south-western suburbs of the city. Despite German radio broadcasts claiming to have captured Warsaw, the attack was stopped and soon afterwards Warsaw was under siege. The siege lasted until September 28, when the Polish garrison under Gen. Walerian Czuma capitulated. The following day approximately 100 000 Polish soldiers left the city and were taken POW. On October 1 the Wehrmacht entered Warsaw, which started a period of German occupation that lasted until the Warsaw Uprising and later until January 17, 1945.

Blitzkrieg (German, literally Lightning war or flash war) is a popular name for an offensive operational-level military doctrine which involves an initial bombardment followed by the employment of mobile forces attacking with speed and surprise to prevent an enemy from implementing a coherent defense. The founding principles of these types of operations were developed in the 20th Century by various nations, and adapted in the years after World War I, largely by the German Wehrmacht, to incorporate modern weapons and vehicles as a method to help avoid the stalemate of trench warfare and linear warfare in future conflicts. The first practical implementations of these concepts coupled with modern technology were instituted by the Wehrmacht in the opening theatres of World War II. The strategy was particularly effective in the invasions of Western Europe and initial operations in the Soviet Union. These operations were dependent on surprise penetrations, general enemy unpreparedness and an inability to react swiftly enough to German offensive operations. That the German Army quickly defeated numerically and technically superior enemies in France led many analysts to believe that a new system of warfare had been invented.

The generally accepted definition of blitzkrieg operations include the use of maneuver rather than attrition to defeat an opponent, and describe operations using combined arms concentration of mobile assets at a focal point, armour closely supported by mobile infantry, artillery and close air support assets. These tactics required the development of specialized support vehicles, new methods of communication, new tactics, and an effective decentralized command structure. Broadly speaking, blitzkrieg operations required the development of mechanized infantry, self-propelled artillery and engineering assets that could maintain the rate of advance of fast tanks. German forces avoided direct combat in favor of interrupting an enemy's communications, decision-making, logistics and of reducing morale. In combat, blitzkrieg left little choice for the slower defending forces but to clump into defensive pockets that were encircled and then reduced by slower-moving German infantry reserves.

Tactically speaking, once the point of attack is identified, the 'schwerpunkt' ('focus point', literally 'heavy point' or 'center of gravity'), tactical bombers, and motorized artillery units struck at enemy defenses. This avoided the setup time and revealing nature of field artillery setup. These bombardments were then followed by probing attacks and smoke screens to reveal defensive detail and allow most effective employment of the main armoured spearhead and combined arms groups. The goals were deepest possible penetration and minimal engagement, while avoiding an enemy counterattack. Once the main force broke through the designated strike area, motorized infantry would then fan out behind the armoured spearhead to capture or destroy any enemy forces encircled by panzer and mechanized infantry units, and to prevent flanking attacks. Less mobile infantry were designated for "mopping up" operations or to participate in the initial breakthrough.

The Borneo Campaign of 1945 was the last major Allied campaign in the South West Pacific Area, during World War II. In a series of amphibious assaults between May 1 and July 21, the Australian I Corps, under General Leslie Morshead, attacked Japanese forces occupying the island.

They were resisted by Imperial Japanese Navy and Army forces in southern and eastern Borneo, under Vice-Admiral Michiaki Kamada, and in the north west by the Thirty-Seventh Army, led by Lieutenant-General Baba Masao.

Although the campaign was criticised in Australia at the time, and in subsequent years, as pointless or a "waste" of the lives of soldiers, it did achieve a number of objectives, such as increasing the isolation of significant Japanese forces occupying the main part of the Dutch East Indies, capturing major oil supplies and freeing Allied prisoners of war, who were being held in increasingly worse conditions (see, for example, the Sandakan Death Marches and Batu Lintang camp articles).

Allied naval and air forces, centred on the U.S. 7th Fleet under Admiral Thomas Kinkaid, the Australian First Tactical Air Force and the U.S. Thirteenth Air Force also played important roles in the campaign.

The Allied campaign was planned as a series of operations under the code name "Oboe". It opened with Operation Oboe One, a landing on the small island of Tarakan, off the north east coast on May 1. This was followed on June 1 by Operation Oboe Six: simultaneous assaults on the island of Labuan and the coast of Brunei, in the north west of Borneo. A week later, the Australians followed Oboe Six with attacks on Japanese positions in North Borneo. The attention of the Allies then switched back to the central east coast, with Battle of Balikpapan the last major amphibious assault of World War II, at Balikpapan on July 1.

The Burma Campaign was a campaign in the South-East Asian Theatre of World War II. It was fought primarily between British Empire, Chinese, and American forces against the Empire of Japan and its auxiliary, the Indian National Army. British Empire forces (often simply referred to as "British") were drawn from the United Kingdom, British India (which included present-day Pakistan and Bangla Desh), east and west Africa and elsewhere.

Until the fall of Singapore and the Japanese incursions in 1942, Burma had been regarded as a military "backwater", unlikely to be subjected to Japanese threat [1]. This was despite the importance of its natural resources (eg oil and rice) and the opportunity to threaten the allied supply route to China.

A notable feature of the campaign was the use of air transport to move troops and to supply them. Large numbers of American transport aircraft were in the region to deliver materiel to China and, at times, these were diverted to sustain allied offences in Burma, thus heavily tipping the regional logistical advantage to the allies' (principally the 14th Army) favour.

The Continuation War (Finnish: Jatkosota, Swedish: Fortsättningskriget), or War of Continuation, lasted from June 25, 1941, until September 19, 1944, and is the second of two wars fought between Finland and the Soviet Union during World War II.

The Continuation War was so-named in Finland — already during the war itself — to make clear its relationship to the Winter War (November 30, 1939, to March 12, 1940). The Soviet Union, however, portrayed the war merely as one of the fronts of the "Great Patriotic War" against Nazi Germany and its allies. Likewise, Germany saw its own operations in the region as a part of its overall war efforts of World War II.

The United Kingdom declared war on Finland on December 6, 1941, but did not participate actively in the Continuation War. Nazi Germany took part by providing critical material support and military cooperation to Finland. The USA did not fight or declare war against either party, but it was in the process of sending much assistance to the Soviet Union, officially meant for the Soviet war efforts against Germany.

The formal conclusion for the Continuation War was ratified by the Paris peace treaty of 1947.

The Battle of Crucifix Hill was a World War II battle that took place on October 8, 1944, on Crucifix Hill (Hill 239), and a part of the U.S. 1st Division's campaign to seize Aachen, Germany. The battle was part of the Drive to the Siegfried Line. The hill was named after a large crucifix mounted on the top of the hill. The objective of the battle was to gain control of the hill, which was laced with a maze of pillboxes and bunkers, so that the main objective of encircling Aachen could be completed. The hill was held by units of the German 246th Volksgrenadier Division.

The Dieppe Raid, also known as The Battle of Dieppe or Operation Jubilee, during World War II, was an Allied attack on the German-occupied port of Dieppe, Seine-Maritime on the Northern coast of France on August 19, 1942. Over 6,000 infantrymen, predominantly Canadian, were supported by large British naval and Allied air force contingents. The objective was to seize and hold a major port for a short period, both to prove it was possible and to gather intelligence from prisoners and captured materials while assessing the German responses. The raid was also intended to use air power to draw the Luftwaffe into a large, planned encounter.

The raid was generally considered to be an unmitigated tactical disaster, with no major objectives accomplished. 3,623 of the 6,086 men who made it ashore were either killed, wounded, or captured. The Allied air forces failed to lure the Luftwaffe into open battle, and lost 119 planes, while the Royal Navy suffered 555 casualties. The catastrophe at Dieppe may have later influenced Allied preparations for Operation Torch and Operation Overlord.

The Dodecanese Campaign of World War II was an attempt by Allied forces, mostly British, to capture the Italian-held Dodecanese islands in the Aegean Sea following the surrender of Italy in September 1943, and use them as bases against the German-controlled Balkans. The Allied effort failed, with the whole of the Dodecanese falling to the Germans within two months, and the Allies suffering great losses in men and ships. The operations in the Dodecanese, lasting from 8 September to 22 November 1943, resulted in one of the last great German victories in the war.

The Eastern Front of the European Theatre of World War II encompassed the conflict in central and eastern Europe from June 22, 1941 to May 8, 1945. It was the largest theatre of war in history and was notorious for its unprecedented ferocity, destruction, and immense loss of life. It resulted in the destruction of the Third Reich and partition of Germany, the rise of the Soviet Union as a military and industrial superpower, and the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe.

In all Soviet and the majority of Russian sources, the conflict is referred to as the Great Patriotic War. Some scholars of the conflict use the term Russo-German War, while others use Soviet-German War, Nazi-Soviet War, German-Soviet War or Axis-Soviet War.

The series of events preceding World War II included the annexation of Austria (Anschluss) in 1938, the annexation of Czech Sudetenland in 1938 as a result of the Munich Agreement followed shortly thereafter by the annexation of the rest of Czechoslovakia, and subsequently the Invasion of Poland in 1939 by Nazi Germany and the resulting third partition of Poland when the Soviets invaded the eastern regions of the country as outlined in the secret codicil to the August 1939 Soviet-German nonagression pact, which also paved the way for the 1940 Soviet annexation of the Baltic States.

This article, however, concentrates on the much larger conflict which was fought from June 1941 to May 1945 in which the two principal belligerent powers were Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. The Russo-Finnish Continuation War may be considered the northern flank of the Eastern Front.

In World War II, the Battle of France, also known as the Fall of France, was the German invasion of France and the Low Countries, executed from 10 May 1940, which ended the Phoney War. The battle consisted of two main operations. In the first, Fall Gelb (Case Yellow), German armoured units pushed through the Ardennes, to cut off and surround the Allied units that had advanced into Belgium. The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and many French soldiers were however evacuated from Dunkirk in Operation Dynamo. In the second operation, Fall Rot (Case Red), executed from 5 June, German troops outflanked the Maginot Line to attack the larger territory of France itself. Italy declared war on France on 10 June. The French government fled to Bordeaux and Paris was occupied on 14 June. After the French Second Army Group was forced to surrender on 22 June, France capitulated on 25 June. For the Axis, the campaign was a spectacular victory.

France was divided into a German occupation zone in the north and west, a small Italian occupation zone in the southeast and a collaborationist rump state in the south, Vichy France. France remained under German occupation until after the Allied landings in 1944, the Low Countries would be liberated in 1944 and 1945.

The First Battle of El Alamein 1–July 27, 1942 was a battle of the Western Desert Campaign of World War II, fought between Axis forces commanded by Erwin Rommel, and Allied forces commanded by Claude Auchinleck.

Following the defeat at the Battle of Gazala in June 1942, the Eighth Army had retreated from Mersa Matruh to the Alamein Line in Egypt, a 40 mile (60 km) gap between the town of El Alamein on the Mediterranean coast to the north and the Qattara Depression in the desert to the south.

On July 1 Panzer Army Africa attacked. The Allied line near El Alamein was not overrun until the evening and this hold up stalled the Axis advance. On July 2 Rommel concentrated his forces in the north, intending to break through around El Alamein. Auchinleck ordered a counter-attack at the centre of the Axis line but the attack failed. The Allies also attacked in the south and were more successful against the Italians. As a result of the Allied resistance, Rommel decided to regroup and defend the line reached.

Auchinleck attacked again on July 10 at Tel el Eisa in the north and over one thousand prisoners were taken. Rommel's counter at Tel el Eisa achieved little. Auchinleck then attacked again in the centre at the Ruweisat Ridge in two battles (the First and Second Battles of Ruweisat on July 14 and July 21). Neither battle was successful and the failure of armour to reach the infantry in time at the Second Battle led to the loss of 700 men. Despite this another two attacks were launched on July 27. One in the north at Tel el Eisa was a moderate failure. The other at Miteiriya was more calamitous, as the minefields were not cleared and the infantry were left without armour support when faced with a German counter-attack.

The Eighth Army was exhausted, and by July 31 Auchinleck ordered an end to offensive operations and the strengthening of the defences to meet a major counter-offensive.

The battle was a stalemate, but the Axis advance on Alexandria (and then Cairo) was halted. A second attempt by Rommel to bypass or break the Commonwealth position was repulsed in the Battle of Alam Halfa in August, and in October the Eighth Army, now commanded by Bernard Montgomery, decisively defeated the Axis forces in the Second Battle of El Alamein.

The French-Thai War (1940 - 1941) was fought between Thailand and Vichy France over certain areas of French Indochina that had once belonged to Thailand.

Negotiations with France shortly before World War II had shown that the French government was willing to make minor changes in the boundaries between Thailand and French Indochina. Following the Fall of France in 1940, Major-General Phibunsongkhram, the Prime Minister of Thailand, decided that France's defeat gave the Thais an even better chance to regain the territories they had lost during King Chulalongkorn's reign.

Metropolitan France's collapse obviously made the French hold on Indochina tenuous. The isolated colonial administration, cut off from outside help and supplies, was forced to allow the Japanese to set up military bases in Indochina. This seemingly subservient behavior convinced the Phibun regime that the French would not seriously resist a confrontation with Thailand.

The Invasion of Poland, 1939 (in Poland also "the September Campaign," "Kampania wrześniowa," and "the 1939 Defensive War," "Wojna obronna 1939 roku"; in Germany, "the Poland Campaign," "Polenfeldzug," codenamed "Fall Weiss," "Case White," by the German General Staff, and sometimes called "the Polish-German War of 1939"), which precipitated World War II, was carried out by Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union and a small German-allied Slovak contingent.

The invasion of Poland marked the start of World War II in Europe as Poland's western allies, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, declared war on Germany on September 3, soon followed by France, South Africa and Canada, among others. The invasion of Poland began September 1, 1939, one week after the signing of the secret Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and ended October 6, 1939, with Germany and the Soviet Union occupying the entirety of Poland.

Following a German-staged "Polish attack" on 31 August 1939, on the first of September, German forces invaded Poland from the north, south, and west. Spread thin defending their long borders, the Polish armies were soon forced to withdraw east. After the mid-September Polish defeat in the Battle of the Bzura, the Germans gained an undisputed advantage. Polish forces then began a withdrawal southeast, following a plan that called for a long defense in the Romanian bridgehead area where the Polish forces were to await an expected Allied counter-attack and relief.

On September 17, 1939, the Soviet Red Army invaded the eastern regions of Poland in cooperation with Germany (see Soviet invasion of Poland 1939). The Soviets were carrying out their part of the secret appendix of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which divided Eastern Europe into Nazi and Soviet spheres of influence. Facing the second front, the Polish government decided the defense of the Romanian bridgehead was no longer feasible and ordered the evacuation of all troops to neutral Romania. By 1 October, Germany and the Soviet Union had completely overrun Poland, although the Polish government never surrendered. In addition, Poland's remaining land and air forces were evacuated to neighboring Romania and Hungary. Many of the exiles subsequently joined the recreated Polish Army in allied France, French-mandated Syria and the United Kingdom.

In the aftermath of the September Campaign, a resistance movement was formed. Poland's fighting forces continued to contribute to Allied military operations, and did so throughout the duration of World War II. Germany captured the Soviet-occupied areas of Poland when it invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 and lost the territory in 1944 to an advancing Red Army. Over the course of the war, Poland lost over 20% of its pre-war population under an occupation that marked the end of the Second Polish Republic.

The Japanese Invasion of Thailand occurred on December 8, 1941. To invade Malaya and Burma the Japanese needed to make use of Thai ports, railways, and airfields. The Thai people, however, were fiercely proud of never having been colonised and were determined to maintain their independence. The Thai army was far from negligible and their soldiers were tough. If heavy casualties were to be avoided it was vital that the early landings across the beaches in southern Thailand should be unopposed.

To this end did the Japanese opened secret negotiations with the Thai government. At the time it looked as though the Axis powers were going to win the war, and in October 1940 the Thai dictator, Field Marshal Phibunsongkhram, gave a secret verbal promise to support them in the event of a Japanese invasion of Malaya.

However, Phibun seems to have been quite ready to forget this promise if circumstances changed and in fact the Thai government asked both the British and Americans in 1941 for guarantees of effective support if they were invaded. Neither country could give them, although Churchill was in favour of giving a public warning to Japan that an invasion of the southeast Asian kingdom would result in a declaration of war by the two countries.

This drove the Japanese planners to distraction as they unsuccessfully strove to obtain agreement to a right of passage through Thai territory, on which their whole operational plan depended. Finally it was General Count Terauchi who took the decision for the invasion fleet to sail and land in Thailand with or without permission.

Operation Archery was a British Combined Operations raid during World War II against German positions on Vågsøy Island, Norway on December 27, 1941.

The raid was conducted by British Commandos of No.3 Commando, two troops (platoons) of No.2 Commando, a medical detachment of No.4 Commando, a demolition party from 101 Troop (canoe) of No.6 Commando and a dozen Norwegians from Norwegian Independent Company 1. The action was supported by Royal Navy gunfire, led by the cruiser HMS Kenya, and Royal Air Force bombers and fighter-bombers.

Operation August Storm, or the Battle of Manchuria began on August 8, 1945, with the Soviet invasion of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo; the greater invasion would eventually include neighboring Mengjiang, as well as northern Korea, southern Sakhalin, and the Kuril Islands. It marked the only military action of the Soviet Union against the Empire of Japan apart from the 1939 Battle of Khalkhin Gol. At the Yalta Conference, it had agreed to Allied pleas to terminate the neutrality pact with Japan and enter the Second World War's Pacific Theater within three months after the end of the war in Europe.

The invasion began on August 8, 1945, precisely three months after the German surrender on May 8. Notably, it began between the droppings of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima (August 6) and Nagasaki (August 9).

Japan's decision to surrender was made after the scale of the Soviet attack on Manchuria, Sakhalin, and the Kuril Islands was known (See Downfall, pg 289), but had the war continued, the Soviets had plans to invade Hokkaidō well before the other Allied invasion of Kyushu.

Operation Bagration (Russian: O??????? ?????????, Operatsiya Bagration) was the codename for the Soviet Belorussian Offensive during World War II, which cleared the Germans forces from Belorussian SSR and eastern Poland. This Soviet offensive resulted in the destruction of the German Army Group Centre. The Soviet armies directly involved in Operation Bagration were part of the Belorussian Front. This front was further divided into the 1st Belorussian Front commanded by Marshal Georgy Zhukov, the 2nd Belorussian Front commanded by Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky, and the 3rd Belorussian Front commanded by General Ivan Chernyakhovsky. This battle was possibly the single greatest defeat for the Wehrmacht during the war. The operation was named after 18th-19th century Georgian prince Pyotr Bagration, general of the Russian army who received a mortal wound at the Battle of Borodino.

Operation Barbarossa (German: ''Unternehmen Barbarossa'') was the codename for Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that commenced on June 22, 1941. The operation was named after the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa of the Holy Roman Empire, a leader of the Crusades in the 12th century; according to Nazi ideology the conquest of 'inferior races' was similarly righteous. It is not to be confused with the war on the Eastern Front in its entirety. Operation Barbarossa lasted from June 1941 to December 1941, while the war on the Eastern Front lasted from June 1941 to May 1945 when the Germans surrendered.

The original German goal was the rapid conquest of the European part of the Soviet Union, west of a line connecting the cities of Arkhangelsk and Astrakhan, often referred to as the A-A line (see the translation of Hitler's directive for details). The failure of Operation Barbarossa arguably resulted in the eventual defeat of Nazi Germany, and was a turning point for the fortunes of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. Operation Barbarossa opened up the Eastern Front, which ultimately became one of the biggest theatres of war in human history alongside the Second Sino-Japanese War, with some of the largest and most brutal battles, deadliest atrocities, terrible loss of life and miserable conditions for Soviets and Germans alike.

Operation Blackcock was the code name for the clearing of the Roer Triangle formed by the towns of Roermond, Sittard and Heinsberg. It was conducted by the 2nd British Army in January 1945 between 14 and 26 January 1945. The objective was to drive the German 15th Army back across the Rivers Rur and Wurm and move the frontline further into Germany. The operation was carried out under command of the XII Corps by three divisions, the 7th Armoured Division (better known as the "Desert Rats"), the 52nd Lowland Division and the 43rd Wessex Division ("Wessex Wyverns"). The operation, named after the Scottish black male grouse, is relatively unknown despite the sometimes fierce battles that were fought for each and every village and hamlet within the "Roer Triangle".

The St. Nazaire Raid (also called Operation Chariot) was a successful British seaborne attack on the heavily defended docks of St. Nazaire in occupied France on the night of March 28, 1942 during World War II. The operation was undertaken by Royal Navy and Army Commando units under the auspices of Louis Mountbatten's Combined Operations.

The obsolete destroyer HMS Campbeltown commanded by Stephen Halden Beattie and accompanied by 18 shallow draft boats, rammed the St. Nazaire lock gates and was blown up, ending use of the dock. Commandos landed on the docks and destroyed other dock structures before attempting to fight their way out. Despite teaming up with a regular soldier unit in the town, all but 27 of the commandos were either killed or captured. 22 Escaped back to Britain in the motor torpedo boats and 5 to the Spanish boarder.

Five Victoria crosses were awarded to men involved in the raid, which has been called The Greatest Raid of Al.

Operation Claymore was a World War II raid on the Lofoten Islands, by the British Armed forces. It was carried out on 4 March 1941, by British Commando and Royal Naval units on the remote islands off the coast of Norway, just inside the Arctic Circle.

The raid was conducted by approximately 1000 men of No. 3 and No. 4 Commando, 52 Norwegians of Norwegian Independent Company 1 and demolition teams from the 55th Field Squadron Royal Engineers. The force made an unopposed landing and generally continued to meet no opposition. They achieved their objective of destroying fish oil factories and some 3,600 tonnes (800,000 gallons) of oil and glycerine (some of the oil being destined for use in munitions).

Through naval gunfire and demolition parties, 18,000 tons of shipping were sunk and the boarding of the German armed trawler Krebs yielded a set of rotor wheels for an Enigma cypher machine and its code books.

The British experienced only one accidental injury and returned with some 228 German prisoners (various), 314 loyal Norwegian volunteers and a number of Quisling collaborators.

The Raid on Drvar (code-named Operation Rösselsprung -"Knight's Leap", by the Germans) was a World War II operation by the Germans in April and May 1944, whose goal was to capture Josip Broz Tito alive and disrupt the leadership of the communist Partisan movement in Yugoslavia.

The Partisan headquarters were in the hills near Drvar, Bosnia at the time. The representatives of the Allies, Britain's Randolph Churchill and Evelyn Waugh, were also present.

German SS and paratroopers fought their way to Tito's cave and exchanged heavy gunfire resulting in numerous casualties on both sides. Interestingly, Chetnik fighters under Draža Mihailović also flocked to the firefight in their own attempt to capture Tito. By the time German forces had penetrated to the cave, however, Tito had already fled the scene and escaped. Actually, Tito had a train waiting for him that took him to Jajce town. It proves that Tito and his staff were prepared for quick escape. The commandos were only able to retrieve Tito’s marshal uniform, which was later displayed in Vienna. After fierce fighting in and around the village cemetery, the Germans were able to link up with mountain troops. By that time, Tito, his British guests and partisan survivors were fêted aboard the British Royal Navy destroyer HMS Blackmore and her captain Lt. Carson, RN.

German casualties were 213 killed, 881 wounded, and 51 missing. According to German reports, after battle, they claimed that 6,000 partisans were killed. On the other hand, partisans never admitted they had such losses and claimed they lost around 500 men and had over 1000 wounded, mostly due to heavy bombing by the Luftwaffe. Moreover partisan reports claim that over 2000 civilians were brutally killed by German troops in and around town of Drvar. What is sure is that German loses were higher then 213 because of more then 800 Waffen SS paratroopers only a dozen survived hiding at the cemetery in Drvar. Actually the 500th SS Parachute Battalion was practically destroyed during this operation.

Otto Skorzeny was involved in planning of the operation and was supposed to command it but gave up on it after his visit to Zagreb when he realised that the operation's secrecy is compromised. Moreover, partisans were provided the intelligence by the British, and they knew that the Axis will launch an offensive operation around Tito's birthday. However, they did not know that it was going to be an air raid. Regardless of that, the orders that partisan units got 48 hours before the actuall air raid started, were to block all roads leading from towns Bosanski Petrovac, Kljuc to Drvar and to stall and slow down any Axis movement coming from those areas. Also some strong partisan formations were positioned southeast of Drvar. Whole partisan brigades and divisions were repositioned from areas of North Western Krajina and moved to Kljuc and Bosanski Petrovac. On the other hand only one company of partisans from Tito's Escort battalion were defending the Cave and in and around town were less then 100 partisans when the operation started. The underarmed students (partisans) of the Partisan Officer's School, around 60 of them, put up a great fight, arming themselves from the fallen German troops, they prevented flanking attempt of the German paratroopers and it proved to be crucial for saving the foreign missions (gave them more time for escape) that were hosted by Tito. When Third Lika Partisan brigade arrived to the battlefield, the Air Raid was already a complete disaster and the orders the brigade got were just to wipe out the remaining Axis troops in the area and to evacuate the wounded and civilians since it was already known that the Axis tanks and infantry were approaching Drvar from northwest.

Operation Sealion (Unternehmen Seelöwe in German) was a World War II Nazi German plan to invade the United Kingdom, beginning in 1940. The operation was abandoned in September 1940.

Following swift victory in the Battle of France, Germany believed the war in the West was won. However, the United Kingdom refused peace talks. As a result, more direct measures to break British resistance were considered.

Großadmiral Erich Raeder of the Kriegsmarine oversaw numerous studies for a German naval assault across the English Channel. The earliest of these, made around November 1939, identified the conditions for invasion:

The Royal Navy must be eliminated.

Royal Air Force air strength must be eliminated.

Coastal defences must be destroyed.

British submarine action against landing forces must be prevented.

The Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH) originally planned an invasion on a vast scale, extending along most of the English Channel, from Dorset to Kent. Final plans were more modest, calling for nine divisions to land by sea with around 67,000 men in the first echelon and an airborne division to support them.[1] The chosen invasion sites ran from Rottingdean in the west to Hythe in the east.

The battle plan called for German forces to be launched from Cherbourg to Lyme Regis, Le Havre to Ventnor and Brighton, Boulogne to Eastbourne, Calais to Folkestone, and Dunkirk and Ostend to Ramsgate. German paratroopers would land near Brighton and Dover. Once the coastline was secured, they would push north, taking Gloucester and encircling London.[2] German forces would secure England up to the 52nd parallel, anticipating that the rest of the United Kingdom would then surrender.

Hitler's initial warning order of 16 July 1940 reflected the most current thinking, and set out the revised minimum pre-conditions. He prefaced his order by stating:

"I have decided to prepare a landing operation against England, and if necessary to carry it out".[3]

Hitler's conditions for invasion were:

The RAF was to be "beaten down in its morale and in fact, that it can no longer display any appreciable aggressive force in opposition to the German crossing".

The English Channel was to be swept of British mines at the crossing points and the Straits of Dover must be blocked at both ends by German mines.

The coastal zone between occupied France and England must be dominated by heavy artillery.

The Royal Navy must be sufficiently engaged in the North Sea and the Mediterranean so that it could not intervene in the crossing. English home squadrons must be damaged or destroyed by air and torpedo attacks.

This placed responsibility for Sealion's success on the shoulders of OKM Großadmiral Erich Raeder and Oberkommando der Luftwaffe (OKL) Reichsmarschall Herman Göring.

Operation Shingle (January 22, 1944), during the Italian Campaign of World War II, was an Allied amphibious landing against Axis forces in the area of Anzio and Nettuno, Italy. The operation was commanded by Major General John P. Lucas and was intended to outflank German forces of the Winter Line and enable an attack on Rome. The resulting combat is commonly called the Battle of Anzio.

Operation Torch (initially called Operation Gymnast) was the British-American invasion of French North Africa in World War II during the North African Campaign, started November 8, 1942.

The Soviet Union had pressed the United States and Britain to start operations in Europe, and open a second front to reduce the pressure of German forces on the Russian troops. While the American commanders favored Operation Sledgehammer, landing in Occupied Europe as soon as possible, the British commanders believed that such a course would end in disaster. An attack on French North Africa was proposed instead, which would clear the Axis from North Africa, improve naval control of the Mediterranean and prepare an invasion of Southern Europe in 1943. American President Roosevelt suspected the African operation would rule out an invasion of Europe in 1943 but agreed to support Churchill.

The Allies planned an Anglo-American invasion of northwestern Africa — Morocco and Algeria, territory nominally in the hands of the Vichy French government. The Vichy French had around 60,000 soldiers in Morocco as well as coastal artillery, a handful of tanks and aircraft, with ten or so warships and 11 submarines at Casablanca. The Allies believed that the Vichy French forces would not fight, partly because of information supplied by American Consul Robert Daniel Murphy in Algiers. However they harboured suspicions that the Vichy French navy would bear a grudge over the British action at Mers-el-Kebir (near Oran) in 1940. An assessment of the sympathies of the French forces in North Africa was essential, and plans were made to secure their cooperation, rather than resistance. The Allies intended to advance rapidly eastwards into Tunisia and attack the German forces in the rear. General Dwight D. Eisenhower was given command of the operation, and set up his headquarters in Gibraltar. The Allied Naval Commander of the Expeditionary Force would be Sir Andrew Cunningham; his deputy was Vice-Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay; Ramsay would plan the landing effort.

Operation Varsity was an airborne operation towards the end of World War II, intended to gain a foothold across the River Rhine in western Germany as a part of Operation Plunder. It involved two divisions and 1,700 transport aircraft. This was the single largest airborne drop in history, and is used at West Point as "the" example of how an airborne operation should be executed.

Operation Weserübung was the German codename for Nazi Germany's assault on Denmark and Norway during World War II and the opening operation of the Norwegian Campaign. (The term means Weser Exercise or Operation Weser, the Weser being a German river.)

In the early morning of April 9, 1940 — Wesertag ("Weser Day") — Germany invaded Denmark and Norway, ostensibly as a preventive maneuver against a planned (and openly discussed) Franco-British occupation of both these countries; upon arrival envoys of the invading Germans informed both countries' governments that the Wehrmacht had come to "protect the countries' neutrality" against Franco-British aggression. Significant differences in geography, location and climate between the two countries made the actual invasions very dissimilar.

The invasion fleet's nominal landing time — Weserzeit ("Weser Hour") — was set to 05:15 AM German time, equivalent to 04:15 Norwegian time.

The Phoney War was a phase in early World War II marked by few military operations in Continental Europe, in the months following the German invasion of Poland and preceding the Battle of France. Although the great powers of Europe had declared war on one another, neither side had yet committed to launching a significant attack, and there was relatively little fighting on the ground.

While most of the German army was fighting against Poland, a much smaller German force manned the Siegfried Line, their fortified defensive line along the French border. At the Maginot Line on the other side of the border, British and French troops stood facing them, but there were only some local, minor skirmishes. The British Royal Air Force dropped propaganda leaflets on Germany and the first Canadian troops stepped ashore in Britain, while western Europe was in a strange calm for seven months. Meanwhile, the opposing nations clashed in the Norwegian Campaign. In their hurry to re-arm, Britain and France had both begun buying large amounts of weapons from manufacturers in the US at the outbreak of hostilities, supplementing their own productions. The non-belligerent United States, contributed to the Western Allies by discounted sales, and, later, lend-lease of military equipment and supplies. It should be noted that in the 1930s, in a much smaller scale, private companies in Britain and the US were also supplying Germany, without government sanction. Engines of a few German fighters were made in Britain and American raw materials were being sold to Germany. German efforts to interdict the Allies' trans-Atlantic trade at sea ignited the Second Battle of the Atlantic.

The Second raid on Schweinfurt (also called Mission 115) took place during World War II on October 14, 1943, when 291 B-17 Flying Fortresses of the USAAF Eighth Air Force attacked ball bearing factories in Schweinfurt, Germany. The factories had previously been attacked on August 17, resulting in a disastrous loss of aircraft (see Schweinfurt-Regensburg mission).[1]

Some 42% of Germany's ball bearings were produced at Schweinfurt and were considered so important to the German war effort that they were one of the highest priority targets after aircraft factories and petroleum production. The second mission to destroy the factories, which was carried out on October 14, 1943, has become known as Black Thursday in Air Force history due to the heavy loss of men and aircraft.

For hundreds of miles inbound to the target area, the B-17 bomber formations were attacked again and again by large numbers of Luftwaffe fighters. A Spitfire escort protected the aircraft over the English Channel. They handed over to fifty P-47 Thunderbolts who accompanied the raid as far as possible. Over Walcheren twenty Bf-109s attacked the escort fighters. German losses were five destroyed and four damaged while no U.S. planes were lost. At Duren, thirty Fw-190s attacked the bombers. Another twenty Fw-190s later joined the attack. During this battle, several B-17s were lost, as well as at least one P-47. German losses were six Fw-190s. At this point, the Thunderbolts had reached the limit of their range and had to return home.

German attacks on the bombers continued during the next three hours as the B-17s flew without Allied fighter escort to the target. Despite the spectacle of plane after plane falling, those bombers still able to fly maintained their course. Crews had been told to expect seven minutes of exposure to 500 88 mm flak guns while over the target area. Unusually, some of the German attackers flew through their own flak to attack aircraft which had not yet dropped their bombs. Only 229 planes reached the target. The 305th Group lost thirteen of the fifteen bombers it sortied and was effectively wiped out.

After "Bombs Away," the American bombers turned away from the target and headed for England and their bases. Almost immediately the German fighters, having landed, refuelled and rearmed, struck again. Finally, the B-17s reached the coastline of Europe and relative safety, some of them so heavily damaged that though they brought their crews home, they would never fly again. Gunners aboard the bombers claimed to have shot down 138 German planes; German records state only thirty eight were lost.

In the final tally, fifty-nine Flying Fortresses were shot down over Germany, one ditched in the English Channel on the return flight, five crashed in England, and twelve more were scrapped due to battle damage or crash landings (more by AA-guns than by fighter aircraft), a total loss of seventy seven B-17s. 122 bombers were damaged to some degree and needed repairs before their next flight. Out of 2900 men in the crews, about 650 men did not return, although some survived as POWs. Five were killed and forty three wounded in the damaged aircraft that made it home, and 594 were listed as Missing in Action. Only thirty three bombers landed without damage. One U.S. fighter pilot was killed in a crash landing in England; and one was wounded and bailed out over Duren. He was smuggled out by the Resistance, returning to England three and a half months later.

The Allies learned the importance of a fighter escort with sufficient range, recognizing the vulnerability of heavy bombers against interceptors. Such very heavy losses could not be sustained, and unescorted daylight bomber raids deep into Germany were suspended until 1944. Raids on Schweinfurt resumed in February, 1944 during what came to be known as "Big Week," with P-51 Mustang fighters escorting the American heavies all the way to and from the targets.

The French attack on Saarland was a French sortie into the Saarland in the early stages of World War II. The purpose of the attack was to assist Poland, which was then under attack. However, the assault was stopped and the French forces withdrew.

According to the Franco-Polish military convention, the French Army was to start preparations for the major offensive three days after mobilisation started. The French forces were to effectively gain control over the area between the French border and the German lines and were to probe the German defences. On the 15th day of the mobilisation (that is on September 16), the French Army was to start a full scale assault on Germany. The pre-emptive mobilisation was started in France on August 26 and on September 1 full mobilisation was declared.

A French offensive in the Rhine river valley area (Saar Offensive) started on September 7, four days after France declared war on Germany. Then, the Wehrmacht was occupied in the attack on Poland, and the French soldiers enjoyed a decisive numerical advantage along the border with Germany. However, the French did not take any action that was able to assist the Poles. Eleven French divisions (out of 102 being mobilized[citation needed]) advanced along a 32 km line near Saarbrücken against negligible German opposition. The French Army had advanced to a depth of 8 kilometers and captured about 20 villages evacuated by the German army, without any resistance. However, the half-hearted offensive was halted after France seized the Warndt Forest, three square miles of heavily-mined German territory.

The attack did not result in any diversion of German troops. The all-out assault was to be carried out by roughly 40 divisions, including one armoured division, three mechanized divisions, 78 artillery regiments and 40 tank battalions. All the necessary forces were mobilised in the first week of September[citation needed]. On September 12, the Anglo-French Supreme War Council gathered for the first time at Abbeville in France. It was decided that all offensive actions were to be halted immediately. By then the French divisions had advanced approximately eight kilometres into Germany on a 24 kilometre-long strip of the frontier in the Saarland area. Maurice Gamelin ordered his troops to stop not closer than 1 kilometre from the German positions along the Siegfried Line. Poland was not notified of this decision. Instead, Gamelin informed marshal Edward Rydz-Śmigły that half of his divisions were in contact with the enemy, and that French advances had forced the Wehrmacht to withdraw at least six divisions from Poland. The following day the commander of the French Military Mission to Poland General Louis Faury informed the Polish chief of staff, general Wacław Stachiewicz, that the planned major offensive on the western front had to be postponed from September 17 to September 20. At the same time, French divisions were ordered to retreat to their barracks along the Maginot Line. The Phony War had begun.

The Schweinfurt-Regensburg mission was a strategic bombing attack flown by the U.S. Army Air Forces on August 17, 1943, against aircraft and ball-bearing factories in Germany. It was a "double-strike" mission that entailed two large formations of B-17 Flying Fortress bombers attacking separate targets, in order to spread out the Luftwaffe's fighter defenses. The mission took off from bases in England, and used shuttle bombing, whereby part of the bomber force continued onwards to land in Tunisia rather than returning home. Although the targets sustained severe damage, the B-17 force was also badly hit, losing 60 bombers from a strength of 376.

The Second Battle of El Alamein marked a significant turning point in the Western Desert Campaign of World War II. The battle lasted from October 23 to November 5, 1942. Following the First Battle of El Alamein, which had stalled the Axis advance, General Bernard Montgomery took command of the British Empire's Eighth Army from Claude Auchinleck in August 1942.

Success in the battle turned the tide in the North African Campaign. Allied victory at El Alamein ended German hopes of occupying Egypt, controlling access to the Suez Canal, and gaining access to the Middle Eastern oil fields. The German defeat at El Alamein marked the end of German expansion.

The Second Battle of Kharkov was a battle fought from 12 May to 28 May 1942, on the Eastern Front during World War II. After a successful winter counteroffensive that repulsed German troops from Moscow but also depleted the Red Army's reserves, the Kharkov offensive was a new Soviet attempt to expand upon their strategic initiative.

On 12 May 1942, Soviet forces under the command of Marshal Semyon Timoshenko launched an offensive into the German Sixth Army, from a salient established during the Winter counteroffensive. After initial promising signs, the offensive was stopped cold by German counterattacks. Critical errors of several staff officers and of Stalin himself, who failed to accurately estimate the Wehrmacht's potential and overestimated their own newly trained forces, led to a successful German pincer attack around advancing Soviet troops, cutting them off from the rest of the front.

This bloody 17-day battle resulted in the loss of over 200,000 Red Army personnel along with several hundred tanks. In the end, it would award Friedrich Paulus his first field victory and open the path for the eventual operations which led to the Operation Blue and the Battle of Stalingrad, throwing the Red Army into another series of defeats and retreats.

The Siege of Leningrad (Russian: ??????? ?????????? (transliteration: blokada Leningrada)) was the German siege of Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) during World War II and arguably the second most lethal battle in world history. The German plan was coded as Operation Nordlicht (Operation North Light). The siege lasted from September 8, 1941, until it was lifted on January 27, 1944.

The Battle of Modlin took place during the invasion of Poland at the beginning of the Second World War. Modlin Fortress was the headquarters of the Modlin Army until it retreated eastwards. From September 13 to September 29 in the year 1939, it was defended by Polish forces under the command of General Wiktor Thommée against assaulting German units. During that time, the fighting was closely connected with the strategic situation of the Battle of Warsaw.

Among Polish forces defending the fortress was the armoured train 'Śmierć' (death). The Modlin anti-aircraft battery was the one that shot down the most Luftwaffe planes in September. The fortress of Modlin capitulated on September 29, as one of the last Polish units to remain operational during the campaign.

The Spanish Civil War was a major conflict in Spain that started after an attempted coup d'état committed by parts of the army against the government of the Second Spanish Republic. The Civil War devastated Spain from July 17, 1936 to April 1, 1939, ending with the victory of the rebels and the founding of a dictatorship led by the Nationalist General Francisco Franco. The supporters of the Republic, or Republicans (republicanos), gained the support of the Soviet Union and Mexico, while the followers of the Rebellion, also called Nationals (nacionales), received the support of the major European Axis powers of Germany and Italy. The United States remained officially neutral, but sold airplanes to the Republic and gasoline to the Francisco Franco regime.

The Holocaust (from the Greek holókauston from olon "completely" and kauston "burnt"), also known as Ha-Shoah (Hebrew: השואה), Churben (Yiddish: חורבן), is the term generally used to describe the killing of approximately six million European Jews during World War II, as part of a program of deliberate extermination planned and executed by the National Socialist regime in Germany led by Adolf Hitler.

Other groups were persecuted and killed by the regime, including the Roma, Soviet POWs, disabled people, gay men, Jehovah's Witnesses, Catholic Poles, and political prisoners. Many scholars do not include these groups in the definition of the Holocaust, defining it as the genocide of the Jews, or what the Nazis called the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question." Taking into account all the victims of Nazi persecution, the death toll rises considerably: estimates generally place the total number of victims at nine to 11 million.

The persecution and genocide were accomplished in stages. Legislation to remove the Jews from civil society was enacted years before the outbreak of World War II. Concentration camps were established in which inmates were used as slave labour until they died of exhaustion or disease. Where the Third Reich conquered new territory in eastern Europe, specialized units called Einsatzgruppen murdered Jews and political opponents in mass shootings. Jews and Roma were crammed into ghettos before being transported hundreds of miles by freight train to extermination camps where, if they survived the journey, the majority of them were killed in gas chambers. Every arm of Germany's bureaucracy was involved in the logistics of the mass murder, turning the country into what one Holocaust scholar has called "a genocidal nation."

The Third Battle of Kharkov was the last major strategic German victory of World War II. Kharkov had originally been captured on October 25, 1941, but had fallen to the Soviets in February 1943, following the German defeat at the Battle of Stalingrad. Led by Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, the Germans counter-attacked and after destroying Soviet spearheads, retook the city in bitter street fighting.

The II SS Panzer Korps, equipped with heavy Tiger tanks, played a significant role. It comprised the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler and Das Reich divisions, which had been resting and refitting for a long period of time and were at full strength. Under the command of SS-Gruppenführer Paul Hausser, it checked the Soviet advance on Kharkov, despite odds of six to one, but, threatened with encirclement, Hausser withdrew against explicit orders from Hitler. The act so infuriated Hitler, he refused to award Hausser after the battle.

The II SS Panzer Korps (now reinforced with the Totenkopf division) was attached to Manstein's counter-thrust, which destroyed the Soviet spearheads and saved Army Group South. The Leibstandarte division then retook Kharkov, for which Hitler renamed the central square "Leibstandarteplatz". The battle is often regarded as the last successful German offensive in the USSR and is still studied in military academies as a textbook example of mobile defence.

The city remained only temporarily in Axis hands. On August 22, 1943, in the aftermath of the Battle of Kursk, the Germans were driven out once again.

Despite its significance, the battle has been the subject of minimal post-war academic study.

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (German: "Großaktion Warschau") was the Jewish insurgency against Nazi Germany's attempt to liquidate the remains of the Warsaw Ghetto in Poland during World War II.

The significant precursor to the main fighting was an armed insurgency launched against the Germans and Jewish collaborators on January 18, 1943. The main fighting lasted from April 19, 1943 to May 16 of that year, when a tenacious but weakly armed and badly supplied resistance was ultimately crushed by SS troops under SS-Gruppenführer (then Brigadeführer) Jürgen Stroop.