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The Battle of the River Plate
First major naval battle. The Royal Navy’s South American Division took on the might of Germany’s Graf Spee which was successfully attacking merchant shipping in the South Atlantic. Captin Bell and captin Perry. the Graf Spee had suffered 37 dead and 57 wounded 1,100. -
Battle of Britain
Aug-Sep. One of the most famous battles. The Germans needed to control the English Channel to launch her invasion of Britain. Sir Hugh Dowding and The main fighter planes of the RAF were the Spitfire and the Hurricane. -
The Battle for Moscow
Blitzkrieg had ploughed through the Red Army. stages of Barbarossa have been seen as massively successful for the Germans and catastrophic for the Russians. Blitzkrieg had ploughed through the Red Army. By October 7th, even Marshall Zhukov was forced to admit that all the major roads to Moscow were open to the Germans. the Red Army was given sufficient breathing space to reorganise itself and its defences under the command of Marshall Georgy Zhukov. -
Battle of Gazala
The Battle of Gazala came after there had been a lull in the war in North Africa from February to mid-May 1942. . Erwin Rommel was to continue his campaign in the region while Churchill wanted his military commanders there to show a more offensive approach. conservative strategy adopted by Lieutenant-General Ritchie, commander of the 8th Army. ----Rommel. Rommel himself was made a Field-Marshal by a delighted Hitler -
The Fall of Singapore
one of the greatest defeats in the history of the British Army and Britain’s worst defeat in World War Two. The fall of Singapore in 1942 showed the way Japan was to fight in the Far East – a combination of speed that ended with the use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in August 1945. The attack on Singapore occurred almost at the same time as Pearl Harbour. the British military command in Singapore was confident that the power they could call on there would make any Japanese attack useless. -
Battle of Midway
considered one of the most decisive battles of World War Two. The Battle of Midway effectively destroyed Japan’s naval strength when the Americans destroyed four of its aircraft carriers. Japan’s navy never recovered from its mauling at Midway and it was on the defensive after this battle. -
The Battle of El Alamein
Fought in the deserts of North africa. fought between two of the outstanding commanders of World War Two, Montgomery, who succeeded the dismissed Auchinleck, and Rommel.The Allied victory at El Alamein lead to the retreat of the Afrika Korps and the German surrender in North Africa in May 1943. Said to be one of the most defensive battles. -
The Battle of Kursk
Kursk was to be the biggest tank battle of World War Two and the battle resulted in a severe crisis for Nazi Germany’s war machine in Russia. Operation Barbarossa had shown the power of armoured warfare when Hitler unleashed Blitzkrieg on the Red Army. The Battle of Kursk was to have major consequences for the Germans. It was the last major offensive they launched in Russia. Their forces faced retreat and attempting to stop the onslaught of the Red Army. -
The Battle of the Philippine Sea
This battle was said to be the last great carrier battle of World War Two. The Battle of Midway in 1942 had done a great deal to damage Japan’s carrier force, but even into 1944, Japan statistically had a larger carrier force than America.Despite America’s huge military capability, the Japanese Navy still represented a threat to her – especially in America’s desire to advance to the Marianas. -
The Battle for Brittany
Brittany was targeted because of its naval bases at Lorient, St. Nazaire and Brest. U-boats and surface raiders had used these bases, despite a bombing campaign by the RAF, and the Germans had launched 'Operation Cerberus' from Brest in 1942. They would also prove very useful to the Allies as they needed as many ports as they could to land the vast amount of supplies their men needed. -
The Battle of Arnhem
An airborne landing at Arnhem (the attack was code-named Operation Market Garden) was a plan to end World War Two early. The idea for an airborne landing on Arnhem came from Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery. The heroics that occurred at Arnhem and the surrounding areas put it up with such events as Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain, the Battle of the Atlantic and D-Day in terms of the courage displayed by the men on the ground. -
The Battle of the Bulge
Took place in the winter months over 2 years. the last major Nazi offensive against the Allies in World War Two. The battle was a last ditch attempt by Hitler to split the Allies in two in their drive towards Germany and destroy their ability to supply themselves. -
The Battle of Iwo Jima
The capture of Iwo Jima was part of a three-point plan the Americans had for winning the war in the Far East. In the west, the Japanese were being turned back in Burma and island hopping had isolated Japanese forces in the eastern sector. Combined with the attacks on Iwo Jima, was America’s desire to finally destroy Japan’s merchant fleet so that the Japanese mainland could not be supplied from the food-rich sectors of South East Asia which Japan still had control over. -
The Battle of Okinawa
The capture of Okinawa was part of a three-point plan the Americans had for winning the war in the Far East. Okinawa was to prove a bloody battle even by the standards of the war in the Far East but it was to be one of the major battles of World War Two. the Americans wished to destroy what was left of Japan’s merchant fleet and use airstrips in the region to launch bombing raids on Japan’s industrial heartland. The Americans lost 7,373 men killed and 32,056 wounded on land. -
The Battle for Berlin
The Battle for Berlin all but marked the end of World War Two in Europe. The Battle for Berlin, along with the Battle of Britain, the Battle of the Atlantic and D-Day, was of vital importance in the European sector. It was fought between April and May 1945, and the Russian victory saw the end of Hitler's Third Reich and the occupation of the city by the Red Army before it was divided into four as a result of the wartime meetings between the Allies.
