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When Britain and France declared war on Germany following the invasion of Poland, many expected that war to be a retread of the infantry tactics of WWI which led to the heavy fortifications of the Maginot Line. Those expectations where shattered in May 1940 when the Germans launched a fast-paced "Blitzkreig" spearheaded by Panzer tanks. The Germans attacked at Sedan with massed Stuka dive bombers. The intense air assault quickly demoralized the defenders and German forces easily through.
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The rapid conquest of the Low Countries and northern France in four weeks was the supreme example of German mastery of mobile warfare. The back of the French army was broken. Hitler would gain control over western Europe (and Fascist Italy entered the war). Everything else in 1940–45 was a consequence of this victory. The German blunder of allowing the British Expeditionary Force to escape through Dunkirk was also significant; Britain would remain a threat, and Hitler’s victory was incomplete.
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German U-boat packs aimed to blockade Europe causing merchant ships to form large convoys, protected by screens of destroyers and corvettes. Daring U-Boat commanders carried out torpedo attacks within the defensive screen. In the end, the Battle of the Atlantic was eventually won by technology. Radar to detect U-Boats from the surface, radio interception, and code-breaking all played a part. By the end of the war more than 3,000 merchant ships had been sunk, as well as almost 800 U-Boats.
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The Luftwaffe mounted mass daytime raids against RAF bases and later London, hoping to gain air superiority and force Britain to make peace. British public morale did not crack, high German losses forced a change in September to less effective night bombing, and the arrival of autumn weather made invasion impractical. The battle demonstrated to Germany (and the USA) that Britain would not easily surrender. The Americans sent help; Hitler decided that he needed to invade the USSR.
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Hitler’s surprise attack on the USSR was the most devastating victory of the whole war. The Wehrmacht’s first objective was achieved: the destruction the Red Army in western Russia. ‘Barbarossa’ did not achieve the larger goal of overthrowing the Soviet system and occupying European Russia. Nevertheless, the catastrophe eventually forced the defenders to fall back 600 miles, to the outskirts of Leningrad and Moscow. The Red Army had to be rebuilt and Germany would remain until autumn 1944.
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The successful Red Army surprise counter-offensive in front of Moscow began on 5 December. The Russians would have bad defeats later, and the Germans would suffer much greater losses at Stalingrad in 1942–43. But the setback at Moscow meant that the Blitzkrieg strategy of Hitler and his generals had failed; the USSR would not be knocked out of the war in just a few months. The northern and central parts of the Soviet front now held firm. And the Third Reich could not win a war of attrition.
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Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor, Wake and Guam
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First carrier based bombing of Japanese home island. Continued throughout the war
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Ships never saw one another but sunk by aircrafts, strategic victory for allies. (PH, DW, YZ, HL)
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Japanese invasion of Island of Kiska and Atu. Japanese occupy islands.
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Japanese carried based fleet sent to attack Midway. Intended to surprise Americans, but American code breakers had prior knowlede and set an ambush. american carriers and land based planes sink all four Japanese heavy carriers. Japan never again assembles another carrier feat, never able to fully replace losses at Midway, while U.S grows more powerful and refines wartime productions strategies.
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First major U.S offensive, first battle in a U.S "island hopping" campaign.
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‘Torch’ was the first successful strategic offensive, and American troops crossed the Atlantic for the first time. Victory in Tunisia, the invasion of Sicily and the Italian surrender followed. But ‘Torch’ and the Mediterranean strategy, urged by the British and accepted by Roosevelt, meant ultimately that there would be no cross-Channel landing in 1943. The battle of Alamein, fought later that November, was much bloodier and a decisive British victory, but ‘Torch’ had a deeper significance.
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The Allies lead an assault on the strategic city of Medjez El Bab and captured it on Nov. 26th, 1942
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Despite a consistent progression, the Allied Forces were forced to put the liberation of North Africa on hiatus due to an aggressive German resistance at key joints
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After Stalingrad the Wehrmacht would make no further advances in the USSR. The mid-November 1942 mobile operation to cut off the city demonstrated for the first time the skill of the rebuilt Red Army. The capitulation of the Sixth Army in the Stalingrad pocket on 31 January was the first major German surrender. Both the German leadership and the population of occupied Europe realised the significance of what had happened: the Third Reich was now on the defensive.
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U.S. victory over Japanese by attacking their convoy that was carrying troops
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The final push against the last Axis strongholds in North Africa (Tunisia)
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The Battle of Kursk (July 1943) is commonly regarded as one of the three great Soviet victories, and the first achieved in the summer (unlike Moscow and Stalingrad). Hitler’s offensive against the Kursk salient (Operation ‘Citadel’) was halted, but the Soviets suffered higher losses.
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In the counter-offensives that followed 'Kursk' - ‘Citadel’: north of Kursk (Briansk/Orel – Operation ‘Kutuzov’) and south of it (Belgorod/Kharkov – Operation ‘Polkovodets Rumiantsev’) the Red Army took and held the initiative along the whole southern front. Its advance to the Dnepr River and across the western Ukraine to the pre-war border would then continue without significant pause until February 1944.
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Operation Husky was the allied invasion and liberation of Sicily from fascist Italy.
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Due to Mussolini's disposition in Rome, Hitler was forced to order an official retreat of Nazi forces due to an overwhelming Allied force. **The Official evacuation did not begin until Aug. 11th, 1943
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The US 3rd Division gives the 'all clear" and with the Axis powers forced out, Sicily is official taken by the Allied Powers
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Allied invasion of Italy during the Italian Campaign. (RA, AB, KT, JB)
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British General Montgomery breaks Rommel's lines in North Africa effectively cementing what would become Allied supremacy in North Africa.
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American surprise attack on planed Japanese air base. Heavy Japanese losses.
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Allied bombing campaign (between USA and Britain) to target German War Machine. (RA, KT, AB, JB)
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The technical complexities of putting huge, largely untried armies across the Channel and supplying them there were very great. The Germans thought that they had a good chance to repel any invasion. After D-Day Hitler chose to mount a stubborn defence of the Normandy region, and when the main breakout came, in late July, the burned-out defending forces had no option but to beat a rapid retreat to the German border.
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Allowed Americas' 29 bombers to attack Japanese mainland
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American invasion of Island of Saipan, Marshall island chain. Neutralize Japanese bases, build american bases for later bombing campaign of Japan.
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The Soviet offensive in Belorussia, three weeks after D-Day overwhelmed the Germans by the pace and uninterrupted nature of the advance – within six weeks an entire army group had been destroyed, most of Soviet territory had been liberated, and spearhead units had advanced as far as central Poland. The pressure of ‘Bagration’ aided the British-American advance from Normandy. By the end of the offensive was that the Red Army would end the war in control of all Eastern Europe.
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Allied invasion of Southern France (RA, KT, AB, JB)
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Failed Allied military operation against Germany in the Netherlands/Germany. (RA, AB, JB, KT)
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American campaign to retake the Philippines. Americans take Luzon by January 1945, guerrilla fighting occurs until Japanese surrender.
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Largest naval engagement in the history of warfare. Represents the last time IJN represents a threat to USN. After this Japanese ships never venture out of home ports. First wave of kamikaze attacks. From this point on Americans gain naval dominance over entire world.
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Germany's final offensive advance of WWII. Germany attacked the Ardennes, taking Allied forces off guard. (RA, KT, AB, JB)
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German's major offensive on Northeastern France (Alsace and Lorraine) (RA, AB, KT, JB)
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Heavily fortified site of a Japanese airbase, took by the U.S. as a staging base for attacks on Japanese mainlands.
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To those in the West, the Battle of Berlin may seem like an afterthought. Yet it involved three quarters of a million German troops, under the command of Hitler, fought a desperate final defense against the encroaching Red Army. Like Stalingrad, the Battle of Berlin was an infantry action fought at close quarters; artillery demolished defensive strongpoints in a city already devastated by heavy bombing. Casualties were heavy, including thousands of civilians.
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Island of O was a key American base for nuclear bombing. American invade island, Japanese employ tactic of attrition, holing down and waiting for Americans to attack.
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Allied invasion of Borneo
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Two atomic bombs dropped by the U.S. (on the 6th and 9th)
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http://www.historyextra.com/feature/second-world-war/11-most-significant-battles-second-world-war
http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/g2652/most-important-battles-world-war-ii/
Keegan, John. The Second World War. Penguin; Toronto. 1990.
