Era VII · 1939 to 1945
The Second World War
From the German invasion of Poland in September 1939 to the fall of Berlin and the battle for Okinawa in 1945, the Second World War was fought across Europe, North Africa, Asia and the Pacific. Tanks, aircraft carriers and air power decided its battles, from Stalingrad and Kursk to Midway and Normandy.
71 battles · 16 commanders
Film: B-17 bombers of the Eighth Air Force in formation, from the Memphis Belle outtakes, 1942 to 1943. U.S. Army Air Forces, U.S. National Archives 342-USAF-19510. Public domain.
Where the battles were fought
Every battle of the era with a story in the Field Dispatch. Tap a dot to read it.
Europe in close-up
Not on the map: Battle of Britain.
Basemap: Natural Earth, public domain. Modern coastlines.
The battles in order
- 1939Battle of Kałuszyn
On the night of 11-12 September 1939 Polish forces retook Kałuszyn east of Warsaw in a fierce night attack, a rare clear victory of the September Campaign.
- 1939Battle of Kock
How General Kleeberg's troops fought the last battle of the September Campaign, won in the field and ran out of ammunition.
- 1939Battle of Mokra
On 1 September 1939 the Volhynian Cavalry Brigade held off the German 4th Panzer Division at Mokra, one of the first Polish successes of the campaign.
- 1939Battle of Mława
How the Polish 20th Infantry Division held its fortified line against the German 3rd Army for three days. Map and full story.
- 1939Battle of Tolvajärvi
How a Finnish detachment attacked a Soviet rifle division in Ladoga Karelia and won Finland's first big victory.
- 1939Battle of Westerplatte
From 1 to 7 September 1939 a small Polish garrison under Major Henryk Sucharski held the Westerplatte peninsula at Danzig against German attack.
- 1939Battle of Wizna
In September 1939 a few hundred Poles held the bunkers at Wizna for three days against Guderian's panzers, a stand remembered as the Polish Thermopylae.
- 1939Battle of the Bzura
From 9 to 22 September 1939 the Polish armies Poznań and Pomorze struck the German flank on the Bzura, the largest battle of the September Campaign.
- 1939Defence of Hel
How the Polish garrison held the peninsula from 1 September to 2 October against land, sea and air attack, the last on the coast.
- 1939Gleiwitz incident
SS men posing as Polish insurgents raid a German radio station and murder Franz Honiok to fake a pretext for war.
- 1939Soviet invasion of Poland
On 17 September 1939, with Poland still fighting Germany, the Red Army crossed the eastern border under the secret Nazi-Soviet protocol.
- 1940Battle of Britain
In the summer of 1940 the RAF held off the Luftwaffe over southern England, denied Germany the air control it needed to invade, and kept Britain fighting.
- 1940Battle of Cape Spada
The Australian cruiser HMAS Sydney and British destroyers sink the Italian cruiser Bartolomeo Colleoni off Crete.
- 1940Battle of Narvik
In May 1940 the Polish Highland Brigade fought beside Norwegian, French and British troops at Narvik, in one of the first Allied land victories of the war.
- 1941Attack on Pearl Harbor
On 7 December 1941 Imperial Japan launched a surprise carrier strike on the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, drawing America into World War II.
- 1941Battle of Hong Kong
From 8 to 25 December 1941 British, Canadian, Indian and local troops held Hong Kong against Japan's 23rd Army, until it surrendered on Christmas Day.
- 1941Battle of Moscow
From October 1941 to January 1942 the Red Army halted and threw back the German drive on Moscow, the first great defeat of the Wehrmacht.
- 1941Battle of Wake Island
In December 1941 Marines, sailors and civilians on Wake beat off a Japanese landing and sank two destroyers before a second assault took the atoll.
- 1941Bombing of Belgrade
Without a declaration of war, the Luftwaffe bombs the Yugoslav capital in revenge for a coup. The death toll is still disputed.
- 1941HMAS Sydney and the Kormoran
How a German raider disguised as a Dutch freighter drew HMAS Sydney close off Western Australia and sank her with all 645 men.
- 1941Second Battle of Changsha
Japan's 11th Army breaks through to Changsha, then falls back to its start line.
- 1941-1944Siege of Leningrad
The 125 g bread ration, the Road of Life, Tanya Savicheva's diary, the Seventh Symphony, the dead.
- 1941Siege of Odessa
The Soviet garrison holds the port for 73 days against Romania's 4th Army, then slips away by sea.
- 1941Siege of Tobruk
How the Polish Carpathian Brigade, the Rats of Tobruk, held the hardest sectors against Rommel until the siege was lifted.
- 1942Battle of Bataan
From January to April 1942 Filipino and American troops held Bataan against Japan's 14th Army, until hunger and disease forced their surrender.
- 1942Battle of Corregidor
In May 1942 Japanese troops stormed Corregidor, the fortress island at the mouth of Manila Bay, and Wainwright surrendered; Americans retook it in 1945.
- 1942Battle of Makassar Strait
Japanese land based bombers caught an Allied cruiser force heading for Borneo, wrecked Marblehead and a Houston turret.
- 1942Battle of Mersa Matruh
Rommel outflanks the British position on the Egyptian coast, and the Eighth Army falls back to El Alamein.
- 1942Battle of Midway
How American codebreakers and a handful of dive-bomber squadrons sank four Japanese carriers and turned the tide of the Pacific war.
- 1942-1943Battle of Stalingrad
The five-month fight for a single city on the Volga that broke the German advance in the East and became the bloodiest battle in history.
- 1942Battle of the Barents Sea
How British destroyers bluffed off the Hipper and Lützow in the Arctic twilight, and why Hitler turned on his navy.
- 1942Battle of the Coral Sea
From 4 to 8 May 1942 American and Japanese carriers fought the Battle of the Coral Sea, the first naval battle in which the ships never saw each other.
- 1942Battle of the Java Sea
How Karel Doorman's mixed Allied fleet tried to stop the invasion of Java and lost five warships and its admiral.
- 1942Battle of the Tenaru
On Guadalcanal, US Marines destroy Colonel Ichiki's detachment at the mouth of the Ilu River, near Henderson Field.
- 1942Carlson's Long Patrol
How Carlson's 2nd Raider Battalion hunted retreating Japanese through the jungle for a month, and what it cost.
- 1942Channel Dash
How Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen ran up the English Channel in daylight past a slow British response.
- 1942El Alamein
How Montgomery's Eighth Army broke Rommel and turned the war in North Africa. The armies, the battle and why it mattered.
- 1942-1943Guadalcanal Campaign
From August 1942 to February 1943 American forces fought Japan for Guadalcanal, the first great Allied offensive of the Pacific War and a turning point.
- 1942Operation Torch
On 8 November 1942 American and British troops landed in Vichy French Morocco and Algeria. How Operation Torch was fought, who won and why it mattered.
- 1942Operation Uranus
On 19 November 1942 the Red Army struck the Romanian armies on both flanks of Stalingrad. Four days later Operation Uranus had encircled the German Sixth Army.
- 1942Second Battle of the Java Sea
How the damaged cruiser HMS Exeter and the destroyers Encounter and Pope tried to escape from Java and were hunted down.
- 1943Battle of Kursk
How Hitler's 1943 gamble at Kursk met the deepest defenses of the war and the vast armored clash at Prokhorovka, turning the Eastern Front for good.
- 1943Battle of Prokhorovka
On 12 July 1943 the Soviet 5th Guards Tank Army attacked the II SS Panzer Corps at Prokhorovka. What really happened, how many tanks fought, and why the legend grew.
- 1943Battle of Tarawa
From 20 to 23 November 1943 US Marines took the fortified atoll of Tarawa in a brutal 76-hour fight that taught hard lessons for the Pacific campaign.
- 1943Battle of the Komandorski Islands
McMorris's small US force fights Hosogaya's fleet for hours by daylight and turns back a convoy for the Aleutians.
- 1943Battle of the Sutjeska
Over 100,000 Axis troops encircle Tito's partisans in the Bosnian mountains. A third die, but the main force breaks out.
- 1943Operation Kutuzov
On 12 July 1943, at the height of Kursk, the Red Army struck the German-held bulge around Orel. Five weeks later Operation Kutuzov had taken Orel.
- 1943Operation Ochsenkopf
How von Arnim's Operation Ochsenkopf was held at Sidi Nsir and Hunt's Gap and cost the Axis its scarce Tiger tanks.
- 1944Battle of Anzio
A surprise landing behind the Gustav Line, a week of caution, four months under siege and a race for Rome.
- 1944Battle of Falaise
How Maczek's Polish 1st Armoured Division held Hill 262, the Mace, to close the pocket on the Germans in Normandy. With maps.
- 1944Battle of Imphal
From March to July 1944 mostly Indian troops of IV Corps held the Imphal plain against Japan's U-Go offensive, until hunger and monsoon broke it.
- 1944Battle of Kohima
From April to June 1944 British and Indian troops held Kohima in northeast India against the Japanese U-Go offensive, a turning point of the war in Burma.
- 1944Battle of Leyte Gulf
In October 1944 the US and Japanese fleets clashed off the Philippines at Leyte Gulf, the largest naval battle in history.
- 1944Battle of Monte Cassino
Over four months in 1944 Allied armies battered the German line at Monte Cassino, until the Polish II Corps stormed the ruins.
- 1944Battle of Peleliu
From September to November 1944 US Marines and soldiers took the island of Peleliu in a brutal, costly battle whose strategic value is still debated.
- 1944Battle of the Bulge
In December 1944 Hitler launched a surprise winter offensive through the Ardennes: the largest, costliest battle the US Army fought in the war.
- 1944Battle of the Scheldt
First Canadian Army fights through flooded polders and Walcheren to open Antwerp to Allied shipping.
- 1944D-Day
How the largest seaborne invasion in history breached Hitler's Atlantic Wall on 6 June 1944 and opened the road to liberate Western Europe.
- 1944Leningrad-Novgorod offensive
How two Soviet fronts broke the German ring around Leningrad from Oranienbaum and Novgorod and lifted the 872-day siege.
- 1944Operation Market Garden
In September 1944 the Allies launched Market Garden, an airborne gamble to seize a chain of Dutch bridges and end the war. It failed at Arnhem.
- 1944Warsaw Uprising
For 63 days in 1944 the Home Army fought the Germans in Warsaw, often called the largest military effort of any European resistance movement in the war.
- 1945Battle for Castle Itter
U.S. tankers, Wehrmacht soldiers and French VIP prisoners hold an Austrian castle against the Waffen-SS days before the war ends.
- 1945Battle of Berlin
How the Red Army stormed Hitler's capital in 1945, from the Seelow Heights to the Reichstag, in the ferocious final battle of the war in Europe.
- 1945Battle of Halbe
The encircled German Ninth Army and thousands of refugees try to break out west through the forests south of Berlin; some 40,000 die.
- 1945Battle of Iwo Jima
In 1945 US Marines took Iwo Jima from a garrison that fought to the last man; the flag over Mount Suribachi became one of history's most famous images.
- 1945Battle of Manila
From 3 February to 3 March 1945 US and Filipino forces retook Manila from Iwabuchi's garrison. Intramuros was razed and about 100,000 civilians died.
- 1945Battle of Okinawa
From April to June 1945 American forces took Okinawa from Japan in the largest and costliest amphibious battle of the Pacific War.
- 1945Battle of Tarakan
Australia's 26th Brigade lands on a Borneo oil island to seize an airfield. 225 Australians die; the strip opens seven weeks late.
- 1945Battle of the Seelow Heights
Zhukov's searchlight attack stalls on the ridge above the Oder, and the breakthrough costs tens of thousands dead.
- 1945Operation Konrad III
German panzers strike from Lake Balaton and reach the Danube in 27 hours, but the drive to relieve Budapest stalls.
- 1945Ruhr Pocket
Two U.S. armies close at Lippstadt, trap Model's Army Group B and take some 317,000 prisoners, more than at Stalingrad.
Guides and lists
- The Greatest Battles of World War II
- The Greatest Battles of the Eastern Front
- The Greatest Battles of the Pacific War
- The Commanders of the Pacific War
- Eisenhower vs Montgomery
- Montgomery vs Rommel
- Patton vs Rommel
- The Dunkirk Evacuation, 1940
- The Doolittle Raid, 18 April 1942
- Yugoslavia in World War II
- The Aleutian Islands campaign
- The end of the war in Austria
Film archive
Short clips from the archives, silent, as they were filmed. Every caption follows the archive's own catalogue record.
B-17s in formation, seen from a bomber
- Shows
- A view from inside a B-17, past a spinning propeller and engine, with three more B-17s flying in formation against cloud and blue sky. The record covers Eighth Air Force activity built around the bomber Memphis Belle.
- Date
- 1942 to October 1943
- Filmed by
- U.S. Army Air Forces (camera operator not named in the record)
- Archive
- U.S. National Archives, 342-USAF-19510, NAID 65930
- Licence
- Public domain, work of the U.S. federal government
- Catalogue record
- Memphis Belle (outtakes)
Landing craft and a battleship off Iwo Jima, 1945
- Shows
- Lines of amphibious landing craft race through the sea towards the island, then a battleship fires its guns as small craft pass in front. The record describes a documentary of the American invasion of Iwo Jima, with ship bombardment, rocket fire and air bombing.
- Date
- 1945
- Filmed by
- Cameramen of the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard (on-screen credit)
- Archive
- U.S. National Archives, 80-MN-5124, NAID 13089
- Licence
- Public domain, work of the U.S. federal government
- Catalogue record
- To the Shores of Iwo Jima
Waves of landing craft head for Iwo Jima, 1945
- Shows
- An aerial view of many waves of landing craft, each trailing a white wake, crossing dark blue water towards the shore of Iwo Jima.
- Date
- 1945
- Filmed by
- Cameramen of the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard (on-screen credit)
- Archive
- U.S. National Archives, 80-MN-5124, NAID 13089
- Licence
- Public domain, work of the U.S. federal government
- Catalogue record
- To the Shores of Iwo Jima
Marines on the black sand of Iwo Jima, 1945
- Shows
- Marines crouch in a group against a slope of dark volcanic sand, some climbing over the crest, with smoke and amphibious vehicles behind them.
- Date
- 1945
- Filmed by
- Cameramen of the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard (on-screen credit)
- Archive
- U.S. National Archives, 80-MN-5124, NAID 13089
- Licence
- Public domain, work of the U.S. federal government
- Catalogue record
- To the Shores of Iwo Jima
Test yourself
This era in the app
Echoes of Battle tells the battles of this era scene by scene, from every side, with a map and a quiz. The app is in closed testing: enlist below and we will send word to your inbox the day it launches.