A, Battles of WW2

Dieppe (Operation Jubilee)

August 19, 1942.The Battle of Dieppe was a test for the full-scale invasion of western Europe. The plan was to make a frontal assault on the town of Dieppe, across the English Channel on the coast of France. The raid on Dieppe would give the Allies a chance to test techniques and equipment for landing troops from the sea. The Battle of Dieppe was a disaster for the Canadians. Nearly 1000 Canadians died and nearly 2000 were taken prisoner.

Battle of Britain

August-September 1940. The Battle of Britain was the first major campaign to be fought entirely by air forces, and was also the largest and most sustained aerial bombing campaign to that date. The objective of the campaign was to gain air superiority over the Royal Air Force (RAF), especially Fighter Command. As the battle progressed the Luftwaffe also targeted aircraft factories and ground infrastructure. Eventually the Luftwaffe resorted to attacking areas of political significance and using terror bombing strategy.

Operation Barbarossa

Nazi Germany's invasion of Russia, June 22nd 1941. Barbarossa the largest military attack of World War Two and was to have appalling consequences for the Russian people. Stalin was taken by surprise.

Phony War

September 1939 - April 1940. Nothing immediately happened following the invasion of Poland as no one initiated an attack. Failure of Allies to attack allowed Germany to conquer France easily.

Dunkirk (Operation Dynamo)

(1940) Evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force and other Allied troops from the French seaport of Dunkirk to England. Naval vessels and hundreds of civilian boats were used in the evacuation, which began on May 26. When it ended on June 4, about 198,000 British and 140,000 French and Belgian troops had been saved.

Battle of the Atlantic

1939-1945. Allied naval blockade of Germany, announced the day after the declaration of war, and Germany's subsequent counter-blockade.f 1943. The Battle of the Atlantic pitted U-boats and against the Royal Canadian Navy, Royal Navy, and Allied merchant shipping. The convoys, coming mainly from North America and predominantly going to the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union, were protected for the most part by the British and Canadian navies and air forces. These forces were aided by ships and aircraft of the United States from September 13, 1941.

Bombing of Dresden

February 13 - February 15, 1945, during the final months of World War II (1939-45), Allied forces bombed the historic city of Dresden, located in eastern Germany. The bombing was controversial because Dresden was neither important to German wartime production nor a major industrial center, and before the massive air raid of February 1945 it had not suffered a major Allied attack. By February 15, the city was a smoldering ruin and an unknown number of civilians—estimated at somewhere between 35,000 and 135,000--were dead.

Coral Sea/Midway

May & June 1942. 2 Battles won by the US against Japan that helped the tides of the war turn in favour of the US.

Operation Sea Lion

Operation Sea Lion was Nazi Germany's plan to invade Britain during the Second World War following the Fall of France. The operation required air and naval supremacy over the English Channel, neither of which the Germans ever achieved. Sea Lion was postponed indefinitely on 17 September 1940 and never carried out.

Stalingrad

The Battle of Stalingrad (August 23, 1942 - February 2, 1943) was the major battle of World War II in which Nazi Germany and its allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad in the southwestern Soviet Union. Marked by constant close quarters combat and disregard for military and civilian casualties by both sides, it is among the bloodiest battles in the history of warfare. The heavy losses inflicted on the Wehrmacht make it arguably the most strategically decisive battle of the whole war. It was a turning point in the European theatre of World War II-the German forces never regaining the initiative in the East and withdrawing vast military force from the West to reinforce their losses.

Battle of the Bulge

The Battle of the Bulge (16 December 1944 - 25 January 1945) was a major German offensive campaign launched through the densely forested Ardennes region of Wallonia in Belgium, France and Luxembourg on the Western Front toward the end of World War II in Europe. The surprise attack caught the Allied forces completely off guard and became the costliest battle in terms of casualties for the United States, whose forces bore the brunt of the attack, during all of World War II. It also severely depleted Germany's war-making resources.

El-Alamein

The First Battle of El Alamein (1-27 July 1942) was a battle of the Western Desert Campaign of the Second World War, fought between Axis forces and Allied forces. The battle halted a second advance by the Axis forces into Egypt. However, Axis presence near El Alamein was too close to major population centres and the Suez Canal for the Allied forces to allow the status quo to remain. The Second Battle of El Alamein took place from 23 October - 11 November 1942 near the city of El Alamein. Allies' victory marked major turning point in the Western Desert Campaign of the Second World War. El Alamein revived the morale of the Allied side, being the first major offensive against the Germans since the start of the European war in 1939 in which the Western Allies achieved a decisive victory

D-Day (Operation Overlord)

The Normandy landings commenced 6 June 1944, intended to break through coastal German defences and begin the reclamation of Western Europe and defeat Hitler.

VE/VJ Day

Victory days, VE Day 8 May 1945, VJ Day September 2nd (in the US), in which the Allies defeated Europe and Japan.