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German Invasion of Poland
At 4:45 a.m., some 1.5 million German troops invade Poland all along its 1,750-mile border with German-controlled territory. Simultaneously, the German Luftwaffe bombed Polish airfields, and German warships and U-boats attacked Polish naval forces in the Baltic Sea. -
Battle of Britain Battle
The instability created in Europe by the First World War (1914-18) set the stage for another international conflict–World War II–which broke out two decades later and would prove even more devastating. Rising to power in an economically and politically unstable Germany, Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist (Nazi Party) rearmed the nation and signed strategic treaties with Italy and Japan to further his ambitions of world domination. -
Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor is a U.S. naval base near Honolulu, Hawaii, that was the scene of a devastating surprise attack by Japanese forces on December 7, 1941. Just before 8 a.m. on that Sunday morning. -
Battle of Wake Island
The Attack of Pearl Harbor and the Battle of Wake Island were simultaneous and Wake Island finished on December 23, 1941. The surrender was of American troops to those of Japan. The battle was for a small island in Central Pacific with the Marines and civilians of the island defending against invaders from Japan. -
Doolittle Raid
At midday on April 18, 1942, 16 U.S. Army bombers, under the command of daredevil pilot Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle, thundered into the skies over Tokyo and other key Japanese industrial cities in a surprise raid designed to avenge the attack on Pearl Harbor. -
Operation Torch
Operation Torch (8–16 November 1942) was an Anglo–American invasion of French North Africa during the Second World War. The French colonies in the area were dominated by the Vichy French, formally aligned with Germany but of mixed loyalties. Reports indicated that they might support the Allies. -
Battle of Tunis
The Tunisian campaign (also known as the Battle of Tunisia) was a series of battles that took place in Tunisia during the North African campaign of the Second World War, between Axis and Allied forces. The Allies consisted of British Imperial Forces, including Polish and Greek contingents, with American and French corps. The battle opened with initial success by the German and Italian forces but the massive supply interdiction efforts led to the decisive defeat of the Axis. -
Attack on Truk Island
Truk in the Caroline Islands had been the main base for Combined Fleet since the pre-WW2 days and had since been the home-away-from-home for the Combined Fleet vessels operating in the South and Central Pacific. -
D-day
During World War II (1939-1945), the Battle of Normandy, which lasted from June 1944 to August 1944, resulted in the Allied liberation of Western Europe from Nazi Germany’s control. Codenamed Operation Overlord, the battle began on June 6, 1944, also known as D-Day, when some 156,000 American, British and Canadian forces landed on five beaches -
Battle of Stalingrad Operation ‘Bagration’
Geographically, it dwarfed the campaign for Normandy. In four weeks, it inflicted greater losses on the German army than the Wehrmacht had suffered in five months at Stalingrad. With more than 2.3 million men, six times the artillery and twice the number of tanks that launched the Battle of the Bulge, it was the largest Allied operation of World War II. It demolished three Axis armies and tore open the Eastern Front. Operation Bagration, the Red Army’s spring 1944 blitzkrieg. -
Philippines Campaign
The Philippines Campaign (1941-1942), was an invasion of the Philippines by Japan also known as the Battle of the Philippines. The islands were a strategic location for the Japanese as they lie between Japan and the South Pacific. -
Battle of Leyte Gulf
This World War II clash followed the Allied landing at the Philippine island of Leyte in October 1944. The Japanese sought to converge three naval forces on Leyte Gulf, and successfully diverted the U.S. Third Fleet with a decoy. At the Suriago Strait, the U.S. Seventh Fleet destroyed one of the Japanese forces and forced a second one to withdraw. -
Battle of the Bulge
Lasting six brutal weeks, from December 16, 1944, to January 25, 1945, the assault, also called the Battle of the Ardennes, took place during frigid weather conditions, with some 30 German divisions attacking battle-fatigued American troops across 85 miles of the densely wooded Ardennes Forest. As the Germans drove into the Ardennes, the Allied line took on the appearance of a large bulge, giving rise to the battle’s name. -
Battle of Iwo Jima
The Battle of Iwo Jima (19 February – 26 March 1945) was a major battle in which the United States Marine Corps and Navy landed on and eventually captured the island of Iwo Jima from the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) during World War II.