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Battles of World War II involving Australia

  • Western New Guinea campaignThe Allied command set a clear goal for early 1944. They needed to bypass heavily fortified Japanese positions in the Pacific theater.
  • Operation CompassOperation Compass began on the night of the 9th of December 1940 with a force of about 31,000 soldiers, 120 guns, 275 tanks, and sixty armoured cars…
  • Second Battle of El AlameinAt 21:40 on the 23rd of October 1942, a thousand guns opened fire simultaneously along a 40-mile front in the Egyptian desert near the railway halt of El…
  • Operation SonnenblumeOperation Sonnenblume, which translates to Operation Sunflower, began in February 1941 with a question no British commander had seriously asked: what if the…
  • Italian invasion of British SomalilandThe Italian invasion of British Somaliland lasted just sixteen days, from the 3rd to the 19th of August 1940, yet it produced one of the war's sharpest…
  • Battle of OkinawaThe Battle of Okinawa began on the 1st of April 1945, when American forces launched the largest amphibious assault ever attempted in the Pacific Theater of…
  • Fall of SingaporeOn the afternoon of the 15th of February 1942, British Lieutenant-General Arthur Percival walked toward the Ford Motor Factory in Singapore bearing a white…
  • First Battle of El AlameinOn the 1st of July 1942, at three in the morning, German infantry advanced east across the Egyptian desert toward a railway station so unremarkable it had no…
  • Anglo-Soviet invasion of IranThe Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran began before dawn on the 25th of August, 1941, when Royal Air Force aircraft crossed into Iranian airspace and dropped…
  • Malayan campaignThe Malayan campaign began at 04:00 on the 8th of December 1941, when seventeen Japanese bombers struck Singapore in the colony's first ever air raid.
  • German invasion of GreeceThe German invasion of Greece began in the early hours of the 28th of October 1940, not with German troops but with an Italian ultimatum delivered by…
  • Battle of Buna–GonaThe Battle of Buna-Gona lasted from the 16th of November 1942 to the 22nd of January 1943. It ended with evidence that starving Japanese defenders had…
  • Invasion of Lingayen GulfThe Invasion of Lingayen Gulf began on the 3rd of January 1945, and what followed over the next ten days would claim the lives of around 738 ship-based…
  • Guadalcanal campaignThe Guadalcanal campaign began on the 7th of August 1942 with 11,000 U.S. Marines wading ashore between Koli Point and Lunga Point on a remote jungle island…
  • Siege of TobrukThe Western Desert Campaign stretched from Mersa Matruh in Egypt to Gazala on the Libyan coast, covering a distance of about 480 kilometers along the Via…
  • Kokoda Track campaignThe Kokoda Track campaign was fought between July and November 1942 in the Australian Territory of Papua, and it nearly cost Australia the war in the Pacific.
  • Battle of CreteThe Battle of Crete began at 08:00 on the 20th of May 1941, when dozens of Junkers Ju 52 aircraft disgorged German paratroopers into the skies above Maleme…
  • Operation CartwheelIn February 1942, Japanese forces captured Rabaul on the island of New Britain from Australian troops. This location became a major forward base for Japanese…
  • Siege of Malta (World War II)The Siege of Malta was a military campaign that ran from June 1940 to November 1942, pitting the air and naval forces of Italy and Nazi Germany against the…
  • Battle of Rabaul (1942)The Battle of Rabaul began before dawn on the 23rd of January, 1942, when a South Seas Force of around 5,000 Japanese troops entered Simpson Harbour and…