List of military engagements of World War II

[

---

right|thumb|250px|USS_Lexington_explodes_during_the_Battle of the Coral Sea.] This is a list of military engagements of World War II encompassing land, naval, and air engagements as well as campaigns, operations, defensive lines and sieges. Campaigns generally refer to broader strategic operations conducted over a large bit of territory and over a long period of time. Battles generally refer to short periods of intense combat localised to a specific area and over a specific period of time. However, use of the terms in naming such events is not consistent. For example, the Battle of the Atlantic was more or less an entire theatre of war, and the so-called battle lasted for the duration of the entire war. Another misnomer is the Battle of Britain, which by all rights should be considered a campaign, not a mere battle.

=European Theatre=

* Blitzkrieg - war conducted with great speed or force by Germans early in the war
** Invasion of Poland - German Case White ("Fall Weiss") - see Timeline of the Polish September Campaign
** Battle of the Atlantic - the campaign that pitted the German Navy's ("Kriegsmarine's") surface raiders and U-boats against Allied convoys from North America and the South Atlantic to the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union - the convoys were protected mainly by the British Royal Navy and Royal Air Force and the Royal Canadian Navy and Royal Canadian Air Force - both the United Kingdom and Canada were later aided by ships and aircraft of the United States. The German U-boats were joined by Italian submarines after Italy entered the war in June 1940.
** Phony War - period of little activity on Western Front between the Invasion of Poland and the Battle of France - also known comically as "Sitzkrieg"
** Norwegian Campaign - see also Timeline of the Norwegian Campaign
*** German Weser Exercise ("Unternehmen Weserübung") - German invasion of Denmark and Norway
*** Allied campaign in Norway - British, French, and Polish occupation of Norway to counter the German invasion
** Invasion of Iceland - British Operation Fork
** Battle of France - German Case Yellow ("Fall Gelb")
** Battle of Britain - German invasion of Britain from the air and by the sea
*** Operation Sealion ("Unternehmen Seelöwe") - planned amphibious invasion of Britain
* Mediterranean Theatre
** Battle of the Mediterranean - A series of battles between the Italian Navy and the Commonwealth forces.
** Balkans Campaign
*** Greco-Italian War - Italian invasion of Greece from Albania and Greek counter-offensive which drove the Italians back into Albania
*** Invasion of Yugoslavia - German "Directive Number 25" ("Directive n. 25")
*** Invasion of Greece - German Operation Marita ("Unternehmen Marita")
*** Battle of Crete - German Operation Mercury ("Unternehmen Merkur").
*** Yugoslavian Front - civil war between Communist Yugoslavian Partisans and the Royalist Yugoslavian Army in the Fatherland ("Chetniks") - with both sides also confronting forces from Germany, Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Croatia, and Serbia
*** Dodecanese Campaign
** Southern France Campaign - Allied Operation Dragoon
** Italian Campaign
*** Allied invasion of Sicily - Airborne invasion of Sicily.
*** Allied invasion of Italy
* Eastern Front
** Invasion of the Soviet Union - German Operation Barbarossa ("Unternehmen Barbarossa") - the invasion of the Soviet Union and Soviet-held territories by the forces of Germany, Hungary, Romania, Finland, Italy, Slovakia, and Croatia
** Continuation War - The Russo-Finnish continuation of the Winter War
* Western Front
** Battle of Normandy ("Operation Overlord", ETO: "Normandy Campaign")
** Northern France Campaign
** Battle of the Siegfried Line (ETO: "Rhineland Campaign", "Ardennes-Alsace Campaign")

=Asian and Pacific Theatre=

* China
** Second Sino-Japanese War- Japanese invasion of mainland China.
* Indochina
** First Invasion of French Indochina - was an attempt by the Empire of Japan, to prevent China from importing arms and fuel.
** French-Thai War - was fought between Thailand and Vichy France over certain areas of French Indochina that had once belonged to Thailand.
** Second Invasion of French Indochina
* Pacific Theater of Operations
**Pacific Ocean Areas
*** Attack on Pearl Harbor - The Japanese surprise air attack on the U.S Pacific fleet which drew the U.S into WW2.
*** Solomon Islands Campaign
*** Volcano and Ryukyu Islands campaign
**South West Pacific Area
***Battle for Australia
***Borneo Campaign
* South-East Asian Theatre
** American-British-Dutch-Australian Command
**Burma Campaign
* Operation August Storm - Soviet invasion of Japanese-held Manchuria.
* Japan Campaign - Series of air attacks on the Japanese navy and planned invasion of Japan.

=Middle East Theatre=

* Middle East Campaign
**Anglo-Iraqi War
**Syria-Lebanon campaign
**Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran

African Theatre

* East African Campaign
* North African campaign or "The Desert War"
** Western Desert Campaign- Allied battles against the Italian colonies.
** Operation Torch - the British-American invasion of Vichy French-held Morocco and Algeria
** Egypt-Libya Campaign
** Tunisia Campaign
* West African campaign
* Battle of Madagascar

Battles

1939

1942

1945

Sieges

*Siege of Warsaw
*Siege of Leningrad
*Siege of Lwów
*Siege of Modlin
*Siege of Novorossiysk
*Siege of Odessa
*Siege of Sevastopol
*Siege of Tobruk
*Siege of Budapest
*Siege of Breslau
*Siege of Bastogne

Naval engagements

General
* Arctic Convoys
* Second Battle of the Atlantic - the name given to the conflicts in the Atlantic Ocean between 1940 and 1945.
** see also Timeline of the Second Battle of the Atlantic
* Battle of the Mediterranean
* Battle of the Indian Ocean

Specific "1939"
*The Battle of the River Plate"1940"
*First Battle of Narvik
*Second Battle of Narvik"1941"
*Battle of Cape Matapan
*Battle of Pearl Harbor"1942"
*Battle of the Coral Sea
*Battle of Midway
*Battle of Guadalcanal"1943"
*Battle of the Komandorski Islands"1944"
*Battle of Leyte Gulf

Major bombing campaigns

"General"'
*Strategic bombing during World War II
*Strategic bombing survey for the overall impact of the bombing.

"Specific"'
* Baedeker raids
* Chungking
* Coventry
* Broome - Japanese raid on the town of Broome, targeting the airfield.
* Dresden
* Darwin - Japanese target the harbour.
* Hamburg
* Helsinki - February 1944, was mostly ineffective due to air defence and deception.
* Hiroshima - One nuclear weapon, Little Boy dropped from a B-29, devastating a city.
* Kassel
* London - "The Blitz" and the V1 and V2 campaigns
* Lübeck
* Nagasaki - One nuclear weapon, Fat Man dropped from a B-29, devastating a city.
* Narva - March 1944. Evacuated town was destroyed by Soviet ADD.
* Pearl Harbor
* Rostock - Heinkel Airplane Construction Plant, Seaport, and City
* Rotterdam
* Stalingrad - 23 August 1942
* Tallinn - February - March 1944. Bombed by Soviet ADD. Large-scale damage.
* Tokyo - Several devastating raids.
* Warsaw

Operations

Raids

Small to medium-sized raiding operations were carried out by both Allied and Axis armies during World War II. The "modus operandi" used included guerrilla attacks by partisans in occupied territory and/or combined operations involving the landing and removal of specialised light infantry, such as commandos, by means of small boats.
*Allied
**Operation Colossus
*** 10 February, 1941
*** Experimental raid by 38 British Commandos on a fresh water aqueduct near Calitri in southern Italy.
**Operation Claymore
*** 4 March, 1941
*** 1000 Men from the British Commandos and belonging to the Norwegian Independent Company 1 destroy fish oil factories on the remote islands off the coast of Norway.
**Operation Archery
*** 27 December, 1941
*** 570 men from the British Commandos and belonging to the Norwegian Independent Company 1 raid and attack German positions on Vågsøy Island in Norway.
**Battle of Timor
*** 19 February, 1942 – 10 February, 1943
*** Continuous raids from Australian commandos against the occupying Japanese.
**Operation Chariot
*** 28 March, 1942
*** 196 Royal Navy and Army Commando units raid and destroy the heavily defended docks of St. Nazaire in occupied France.
**Dieppe Raid
*** 19 August, 1942
*** Over 6,000 infantrymen, mostly Canadian attempted to seize and hold the port of Dieppe.
**Makin Island raid, 17-18 August, 1942
**Operation Jaywick, September 1943
**Operation Jedburgh, 1944
**Operation Roast, April 1945
*Axis
**Operation Greif, December 1944

Raiding units
*Allied
**Multinational
***Chindits
***Devil's Brigade
***Z Special Unit
***Popski's Private Army
***Gideon Force
**Australia
***Australian Army Independent Companies
**France
***Far East French Expeditionary Forces
***Intervention Light Corps
**Greece
***Sacred Band
**United Kingdom
***Long Range Desert Group
***Special Air Service
***Royal Marines
***Special Operations Executive
***British Army Commandos
****Layforce
***British Paratroopers
**United States
***Marine Raiders
***US Army Rangers
***Alamo Scouts
***Merrill's Marauders
*Axis
**Nazi Germany
***Brandenburger Regiment
***Waffen-SS (commando force led by Otto Skorzeny).
**Fascist Italy
***Decima Flottiglia MAS
**Empire of Japan
***Special Naval Landing Forces

Defensive lines

*Atlantic Wall
*GHQ Line
*Gustav Line
*Maginot Line
*Mannerheim Line
*Metaxas Line
*Siegfried Line
*Taunton Stop Line

Contemporaneous wars

* Anglo-Iraqi War
* Chinese Civil War
* Greek Civil War
* Second Italo-Abyssinian War
* Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945)
* Soviet-Japanese Border War (1939)
* Spanish Civil War
* Winter War ("Russo-Finnish War"), Continuation War, Lapland War

See also

* World War II
* Campaigns of World War II
* Participants in World War II
* List of operations and projects (military and non-military)
* List of battles 1901-2000
* List of World War II topics

World War II