Curated playlist
Battles of World War II involving the United States
- Battle of Northern Burma and Western YunnanIn May 1942, Japan cut the Burma Road, the only overland supply route into China.
- Western New Guinea campaignThe Western New Guinea campaign brought soldiers from three different armies onto the same stretch of tropical coastline in 1944 and 1945. Forces of the Dutch East Indies army, known as the KNIL, fought alongside American and Australian…
- Battle of GazalaRommel used a decoy attack at Gazala, then swung his tanks south around the British line by night.
- Siege of MyitkyinaRain and disease turned a planned quick march on Myitkyina into a siege. The fight in Burma dragged on for months.
- Allied invasion of SicilyA corpse helped Allied forces invade Sicily in 1943. Fake papers on it pointed German forces toward Greece.
- Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaignOn Betio, a tiny coral island, Japan built over 100 machine gun nests and 500 pillboxes.
- Battle of Nuremberg (1945)Nuremberg fell to US troops on Adolf Hitler's 56th birthday. The city had hosted his grandest Nazi rallies.
- Operation QueenMore than 4,500 aircraft bombed the Siegfried Line in 1944, yet American soldiers barely advanced.
- Mariana and Palau Islands campaignAmerican crews built B-29 airfields on Saipan and Tinian in 1944. Those runways were the reason the islands were seized.
- Omaha BeachAllied planners expected up to 1,000 defenders at Omaha Beach, but a full German division was waiting.
- Normandy landingsThe D-Day invasion hinged on a weather forecast from Ireland's west coast.
- Spring 1945 offensive in ItalyItalian partisans liberated Milan on the 25th of April 1945, before Allied troops entered.
- Operation Market GardenWhy did Allied commanders wave off warnings before Operation Market Garden at Arnhem in 1944?
- Ruhr pocketField Marshal Walter Model dissolved his army group in April 1945 rather than surrender.
- Siegfried Line campaignAllied armies raced across France so fast in 1944 that they ran out of fuel.
- Battle of OkinawaJapan's army sent 1,780 schoolboys aged 14 to 17 to the front at Okinawa. About half were killed outright.
- Allied invasion of ItalyA loudspeaker on an Italian beach told landing American soldiers to give up. They landed anyway.
- Battle of Guam (1941)Guam's 1941 defenders had no artillery on land and no airfield. Japan took the island in about two days.
- Battle of LuzonMost Japanese soldiers who died in the Battle of Luzon were killed by starvation and disease, not enemy fire.
- Borneo campaignAustralian soldiers paddled handmade folboats toward Tarakan island on the 1st of May 1945.
- Philippines campaign (1941–1942)Japanese bombers caught nearly every American heavy bomber in the Philippines parked on the ground.
- Philippines campaign (1944–1945)Soldiers pumped 3,000 gallons of diesel into Fort Drum in Manila Bay and lit it.
- Battle of the BulgeIn the Battle of the Bulge, an American general answered a surrender demand with one word: Nuts.
- Operation TorchOperation Torch landed Allied troops in 1942 without knowing if French defenders would fight.
- Battle of LeyteAt the Battle of Leyte, MacArthur waded ashore to keep a two-year promise. He had vowed in 1942 to return.
- Battle of Mount SongIn 1944, several tons of TNT under Mount Song finally destroyed a Japanese fortress.
- Falaise pocketPilots flying over the Falaise pocket smelled the carnage from hundreds of feet up.
- Operation PlunderPatton wanted the world to know his army crossed the Rhine before Montgomery's.
- Battle of Iwo JimaPlanners expected Iwo Jima to fall in a week, but it took five weeks. Japanese defenders had dug deep tunnels.
- Aleutian Islands campaignThe Aleutian Islands campaign was the only World War II battle fought on North American soil.
- Battle of Manila (1945)In 1945, a Japanese admiral refused orders to leave Manila and chose to fight to the last man.
- Battle of MindanaoOn Mindanao, American planners avoided the heavily defended gulf and landed on an undefended coast.
- Battle of West HunanIn April 1945, Japan sent 80,000 men into west Hunan to seize one Chinese airfield. They were pushed back by June 7.
- Operation DragoonOn August 15, 1944, 1,300 Allied bombers hit Provence to open the invasion of southern France.
- Operation Northwind (1944)Operation Northwind, known in German as Unternehmen Nordwind, was the last major German offensive of World War II on the Western Front. It opened on the 31st of December 1944, across Rhineland-Palatinate, Alsace and Lorraine, and it ran…
- Battle of MidwayAmerican code breakers tricked Japan into confirming Midway was its target. They had Midway radio a fake water shortage.
- Western Allied invasion of GermanySeven German soldiers surrendered at Nierstein, then paddled themselves back across the Rhine.
- Battle of Buna–GonaThe Battle of Buna–Gona ended with evidence that starving Japanese defenders had eaten their own dead.
- Invasion of Lingayen GulfKamikaze attacks at Lingayen Gulf on January 6, 1945 hit at a rate approaching 50 percent.
- Guadalcanal campaignTwo Japanese battleships fired 973 shells at Henderson Field, yet planes flew from it the next day.
- Battle of AnzioThe Anzio landings in January 1944 caught the Germans by surprise, yet Rome did not fall for four and a half months.
- Battle of Wake IslandAt Wake Island, a small Marine garrison sank two Japanese warships in December 1941.
- Liberation of ParisThe first troops to break into central Paris in August 1944 were mostly Spanish Republicans.
- Kokoda Track campaignAt one point in 1942, Japanese forces stood within 32 km of Port Moresby on the Kokoda Track.
- Operation KeNearly 36,000 Japanese troops went to Guadalcanal, and only about 11,000 were alive when Operation Ke began.
- Operation CartwheelAllied forces made Japan's Rabaul base harmless without ever storming it. Operation Cartwheel bypassed it instead.
- Dieppe RaidThe Dieppe Raid was over within ten hours of the landing. Of 6,086 men who landed, 3,623 were dead, wounded or captured.