Most Important Battles Of World War II

World War II was the largest, deadliest, and most widespread armed conflict in human history, notes History. It was fought in almost every type of environment imaginable: on and under the sea, in the skies, in hills, mountains, open fields, cities, deserts, forests, and frozen wastelands. Some of the battles were quick, bloodless skirmishes. Others were mighty deathmatches that lasted months if not years, consuming the lives of hundreds of thousands or even millions of souls, military and civilian alike. In almost every theater, the conflict was defined by an initial period of violent Axis expansion, then a turning point, followed by a final Allied advance.

So which campaigns and battles turned the tide? Which ones captured the attention of the world and the imaginations of millions in their aftermath? Here's a list of some of the war's largest, most tragic, most epic, deadliest, and most all-around important battles.

Britannica notes that, following Nazi Germany's June 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union, its armies were mobilized just a few months later towards Leningrad, with support from their Finnish allies, both groups enclosing the city from west, south, and north. To counteract the enemy approach, Leningrad's citizens organized antitank fortifications and some 200,000 able-bodied men to defend their city.  

It would be enough to hold the city, but not to prevent its suffering. By November, the Axis had effectively encircled the city, severing supply lines and thus cutting off the city's food supply. The anguish of mass hunger set in quickly. In 1942 alone, Britannica notes that an astonishing, heart-wrenching 650,000 people in the city had lost their lives, mostly due to starvation. World at War Magazine describes the Road of Life — Russian supply trucks making a perilous journey across the frozen surface of Lake Ladoga to reach the city — as the city's only lifeline.

The following year, the Red Army managed to pierce the German lines just south of Lake Ladoga, allowing precious supplies to enter the city overland for the first time in over a year. And by early 1944, History notes the Soviets had amassed enough force to drive the Germans from the outskirts of town, lifting the siege. It wasn't the most decisive battle of the war, but after nearly 900 days and 800,000 deaths, it's certainly one of the most epic, and tragic.

In late 1941, the initially rapid Axis advance into Russia had been delayed due to the fall rasputitsa, or "time without roads," when autumn rains turned Russia's primitive dirt road network into an ocean of mud, making large scale maneuvers impossible, writes Richard Overy in "Russia's War." But plummeting temperatures froze the ground solid, and soon Operation Typhoon was a go, as per History: German armies were now converging on the Soviet capital of Moscow.

To offset the rising panic, the National WWII Museum notes that Joseph Stalin stayed in the city, held a military parade there, and put its people to work. As all men of fighting age were deploying for war, the task of building the city's defensive rings fell to the women and children. Stalin also summoned Field Marshal Georgy Zhukov to oversee Moscow's defense. Zhukov noted that after the battles of Bryansnk and Vyazma, few troops remained to man the new positions (via the History Learning Site). Hard decisions had to be made, but the Russians managed to assemble new armies in the nick of time.

When the Germans arrived, a combination of frigid temperatures, supply lines stretched beyond breaking point, and especially fanatical resistance from Soviet troops more adept at winter combat, halted their attack. Then the Red Army launched its own offensive and threw them back (via the History Learning Site). The Germans weren't close to defeat, but they weren't close to victory, either.

The National WWII Museum notes that the Japanese hoped to deal the U.S. Pacific fleet a crippling blow at Pearl Harbor. But several U.S. aircraft carriers had survived, says History. To finish them off, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto decided to lure them into battle by attacking Midway atoll, near Hawaii (via the National Park Service). But U.S. intelligence caught wind of the plans and dispatched three carriers in secret. The Americans, itching for vengeance, were preparing a trap of their own.

The battle began on June 4, 1942, roughly six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Japanese aircraft bombed Midway island itself, taking out some land-based American planes and anti-aircraft defenses. But the bulk of the three day fight was at sea, according to History, as carrier-based planes on both sides scoured the ocean for the enemy fleet.

The Americans spotted the Japanese first. Several sorties of bombers, dispatched to knock out Japanese carriers, were shot down before achieving any notable success. But then, in a stroke of astonishing luck, U.S. torpedo-bombers and dive-bombers appeared over the Japanese fleet while its defensive aircraft were on deck, refueling. Defenseless, the Japanese lost all four of its heavy carriers while only knocking out a single American counterpart: the Yorktown.

Japan's industrial inferiority meant this total, devastating loss instantly and permanently turned the tide of war in favor of the Americans (via Britannica), and set the empire on a path to decline in the Pacific.

Britain struggled in ground combat against the German Wehrmacht in the beginning of the war. Britannica notes they'd been thrown into the sea during the Nazi conquest of France. They got their next chance to fight on land in the North African campaign, but after some victories against the Italians, German Gen. Erwin Rommel arrived with his Afrika Korps and dominated them for years, according to the Atlantic, pushing them back into Egypt by summer 1942. By October, British Eighth Army Cmdr. Bernard Montgomery was under enormous pressure from London to defeat the Germans, eliminate the Axis threat to the Suez Canal, and deliver a desperately needed win to boost morale back home.

Luckily, he was up to the task. The British National Army Museum notes that Montgomery amassed a force of 190,000 men and over 1,000 tanks to Rommel's 116,000 men and barely half as many panzers. The museum goes on to say that the British used their superiority to first penetrate German defenses, before engaging them in a close-quarters battle of attrition to wear them down. When they launched Operation Supercharge in the beginning of November, the Germans were too exhausted to resist.

The battle broke the Axis winning streak against the Western Allies, threw the Germans into retreat, and was the beginning of the end of the African campaign (via the BBC). The next Allied target: Europe itself.

By mid 1944, the Western Allies had inflicted considerable losses on the German army, but their contributions paled in comparison to those of the Soviet Union, which had done the bulk of the fighting and dying since their nation was invaded. A second front of major ground combat operations was overdue, and after the invasion of Italy failed to bring about a swift advance into Europe's "soft belly," a cross-channel, Western Allied invasion of Nazi occupied France was agreed upon, as per History Today.

As per Britannica, Operation Overlord was a titanic international effort made possible by extensive deception operations, massive logistical groundwork, and the training of new legions of Anglo-American forces who would be called upon to crack Adolf Hitler's Atlantic wall. On June 6, airborne troops landed behind enemy lines to seize key bridges and crossroads just hours before thousands of Allied soldiers stormed five beaches at Normandy, France, as well as other minor sites. The landing zones were in Allied hands by the end of the day, but a two-month slog through the dense hedgerows and urban centers of Normandy was in order before a true breakout was possible. Still, Allied strength was overwhelming, and when the breakout was finally achieved in early August it brought about the collapse of the German army in France.

This "Great Crusade," as Dwight Eisenhower dubbed it, known globally as D-Day, was one of western civilization's great historical triumphs, and the swan song of an already crumbling Third Reich.