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Conflicts in 1944

  • 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…
  • Siege of MyitkyinaRain and disease turned a planned quick march on Myitkyina into a siege. The fight in Burma dragged on for months.
  • Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaignOn Betio, a tiny coral island, Japan built over 100 machine gun nests and 500 pillboxes.
  • Operation QueenMore than 4,500 aircraft bombed the Siegfried Line in 1944, yet American soldiers barely advanced.
  • Battle of Guilin–LiuzhouOnly 20,000 Chinese troops defended Guilin when Japan attacked on the 1st of November. The city fell after ten days.
  • Budapest offensiveSoviet armies closed a ring around Budapest in late December 1944. Roughly 79,000 troops were trapped.
  • Leningrad–Novgorod offensiveOn January 14, 1944, 220,000 shells opened the Soviet push to end the Leningrad siege.
  • Operation OverlordStorms nearly stopped the D-Day invasion of Normandy before it began.
  • Vyborg–Petrozavodsk offensiveMoscow wanted Finland's army destroyed and Finland out of the war. Neither goal was fully met in the 1944 offensive.
  • Normandy landingsThe D-Day invasion hinged on a weather forecast from Ireland's west coast.
  • First Jassy–Kishinev offensiveHistorian David Glantz argues Soviet historians erased a failed 1944 offensive for nearly sixty years.
  • Continuation WarFinland fought beside Nazi Germany but insisted it was not an ally. Its leaders said "co-belligerent" instead.
  • Battle of the BulgeIn the Battle of the Bulge, an American general answered a surrender demand with one word: Nuts.
  • Battle of LeyteAt the Battle of Leyte, MacArthur waded ashore to keep a two-year promise. He had vowed in 1942 to return.
  • Operation DragoonOn August 15, 1944, 1,300 Allied bombers hit Provence to open the invasion of southern France.
  • 1944 Romanian coup d'étatIn August 1944, Romania's king had his prime minister arrested at the palace. Romania then switched sides overnight.
  • Battle of Leyte GulfAt Leyte Gulf, a message ending "THE WORLD WONDERS" left an admiral sobbing with rage. Those words were only padding.
  • Warsaw UprisingThe Warsaw Uprising began at 17:00 on the 1st of August 1944. It lasted 63 days against German occupation.
  • Battle of ImphalJapan's general expected to win the Battle of Imphal in three weeks.
  • Battle of the Philippine SeaAt the Philippine Sea in June 1944, Japan lost 346 carrier aircraft in a single day.
  • Battle of KohimaThe Battle of Kohima came down, at one point, to a tennis court. Enemy trenches sat a grenade throw apart in April 1944.
  • Operation U-GoJapan's Operation U-Go was led by a general who once called the terrain impassable.
  • Italian Civil WarThe Italian Civil War left even its own veterans unsure how they had ended up on the side they chose. Nuto Revelli, who became a partisan commander, wrote of the night of the 25th of July: "If on the night of the 25th of July I had been…
  • Lapland WarIn the Lapland War, Finland fought its former German allies, though neither side truly wanted to.
  • Liberation of ParisThe first troops to break into central Paris in August 1944 were mostly Spanish Republicans.
  • Slovak National UprisingSlovakia's own army turned on Germany in 1944. The Slovak National Uprising began inside a Nazi client state.
  • Operation BagrationOperation Bagration began exactly three years after Germany invaded the Soviet Union.
  • Siege of LeningradBesieged Leningrad played a symphony on the day Hitler had picked for a victory banquet. It was aimed at enemy lines.
  • World War II in YugoslaviaYugoslavia's army surrendered in eleven days in April 1941. The war that followed lasted four more years.
  • 1944 Bulgarian coup d'étatBulgarian Communists took Sofia themselves in 1944, before the Red Army reached the capital.
  • Belgrade offensiveIn 1944, a Soviet brigade drove 120 kilometers in 24 hours toward Belgrade. It left German front-line units far behind.
  • Dnieper–Carpathian offensiveSpring mud helped the Red Army win a huge battle in Ukraine. Most German tanks could not move in it, but the T-34 could.
  • Operation CartwheelAllied forces made Japan's Rabaul base harmless without ever storming it. Operation Cartwheel bypassed it instead.
  • Second Jassy–Kishinev offensiveIn August 1944, a Soviet attack collapsed the German-Romanian front in Romania within two days.
  • World War IIHistorians still disagree about the day World War II began. Most choose 1 September 1939, when Germany invaded Poland.
  • Operation Ichi-GoJapan's 1944 Operation Ichi-Go sent half a million troops across China. Chinese defenses still crumbled within weeks.

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