World War 2 Events

Operation Aphrodite was a series of bombing runs by explosive-laden aircraft piloted by a skeleton crew who would parachute from the aircraft before detonation. After U.S. Army Air Forces...

Operation Tractable was the final Canadian–Polish offensive to take place during the Battle of Normandy. Its aim was to capture the strategically important town of Falaise and subsequentl...

The assault troops were formed of three American divisions of the VI Corps, reinforced with the French 5th Armoured Division, all under the command of Lieutenant General Lucian K. Truscot...

The Battle of Guilin–Liuzhou (simplified Chinese: 桂柳会战; traditional Chinese: 桂柳會戰; pinyin: Gùilǐu Huìzhàn), also known as the Battle of Guiliu was one of the 22 major engagements between ...

The Jassy-Kishinev Operation (Russian: Ясско-кишинёвская стратегическая наступательная операция, translation: Jassy-Kishinev Strategic Offensive Operation), named after the two major citi...

Hill 262 or Mont Ormel ridge, nicknamed The Mace (elevation 262 metres (860 ft)), was the location of a pivotal engagement fought as part of the wider battle of the Falaise pocket during ...

Tragedy struck at Freckleton, Lancashire, on August 23, 1944, when an American B-24 bomber on a test flight overshot the runway while trying to land at the American air base at Warton dur...

The Gothic Line (Italian: Linea Gotica) formed Field Marshal Albert Kesselring's last major line of defence in the final stages of World War II along the summits of the Apennines during t...

The French capital had been occupied for four years, and most Americans associated German occupation with a romantic picture of Parisians struggling against German oppression. In reality,...

The Slovak National Uprising (Slovak: Slovenské národné povstanie, abbreviated SNP) or 1944 Uprising was an armed insurrection organized by the Slovak resistance movement during World War...

The World War II Operation Fusilade, was the planned set piece assault on the French port of Dieppe, by the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division. In the event, the German occupiers, not having ...

Operation Tiderace commenced when Mountbatten ordered Allied troops to set sail from Trincomalee and Rangoon on 31 August for Singapore. The fleet was not armed with offensive weapons as ...

Vergeltungswaffen (English: retaliatory weapons, reprisal weapons, vengeance weapons) was a particular set of Wunderwaffen (English: superweapons) of Nazi Germany designed for long-range ...

Operation Astonia was a battle fought during the Siegfried Line Campaign of World War II from 10 September 1944 to 12 September 1944. The Allied objective of the operation was the capture...

Churchill, Roosevelt and their advisers met for a second time in Quebec in a conference codenamed Octagon. (The first Quebec conference had been held more than a year earlier, in August 1...

The Baltic Offensive, also known as the Baltic Strategic Offensive, denotes the campaign between the German Army Group North and the northern Fronts of the Red Army in the Baltic States d...

Soviet attacks on the 4th SS Panzer Corps east of Warsaw were renewed on 26 August, and the Germans were forced to retreat into Praga. The Soviet army under the command of Konstantin Roko...

The Battle of Peleliu, codenamed Operation Stalemate II, was fought between the United States and Imperial Japan in the Pacific Theater of World War II, from September to November 1944 on...

The Battle of Angaur was a battle of the Pacific campaign in World War II, fought on the island of Angaur in the Palau Islands from 17 September 1944 to 30 September 1944. Angaur is a ...

The first lift was preceded by intense bombing and strafing raids made by the British 2nd Tactical Air Force and the American 8th and 9th Air Forces. These targeted the known flak guns an...

Operation Wellhit was the World War II operation by the 3rd Canadian Division (Canadian 1st Army) to take the fortified port of Boulogne in northern France. At first, the 9th Canadian Inf...

The Tallinn Offensive (Russian: Таллинская наступательная операция) was the Soviet strategic offensive operation corresponding to the German abandonment of mainland Estonia codenamed Oper...

As the second day dawned the 9th SS Panzer Division continued to reinforce the German blocking line. Krafft's unit withdrew overnight and joined Spindler's line, coming under his command....

With the arrival of the South Staffords and 11th Parachute battalion at the 1st and 3rd Parachute Battalion's positions west of Arnhem, the British hoped to have sufficient troops to brea...

This phase concentrated on the town of Schmidt, astride an important German supply route, within the southern part of the forest. The engagement began on September 19, 1944, with a pro...

The Battle for Brest was one of the fiercest battles fought during Operation Cobra, the Allied breakout of Normandy which began on 27 July 1944, during the Battle of Normandy during World...

By now the division was too weak to attempt to reach Frost at the bridge. Of the nine infantry battalions, only one (1st Battalion, The Border Regiment) still existed as a unit, the rest ...

Throughout the morning the Germans mopped up British survivors and stragglers in hiding around Arnhem bridge. It took several hours to clear the bridge of debris allowing German armour to...

Overnight the Germans south of the river formed a blocking line along the railway, linking up with 10th SS to the south and screening the road bridge from the Poles. The Polish were well ...

The 7th and 8th Canadian Infantry Brigades opened their attack on Calais and its western coastal defences at 10:15am on 25 September after a day's delay, following preparatory air and art...

Spindler was ordered to switch his attacks further south and try to force the British away from the river, thus isolating the British from any hope of reinforcement and allowing them to b...

In the morning Horrocks visited the Polish positions at Driel to see the front for himself. Later he hosted a conference attended by Browning, Major-General Ivor Thomas of the 43rd (Wesse...

Overnight a copy of the withdrawal plan was sent across the river for Urquhart's consideration. Despite the obviously frustrating content, Urquhart knew there was little other choice and ...

On October 2 General Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski signed the capitulation of the remaining Polish forces (Warszawski Korpus Armii Krajowej or Home Army Warsaw Corps) in the German headquarters ...

On October 2, the 2nd Canadian Division began its advance north from Antwerp. Stiff fighting at Woensdrecht ensued on October 6, the objective of the first phase. The Germans, reinforced ...

The 2nd Ukrainian Front operation begun on 6 October 1944, with Malinovsky's southern pincer attacking near Arad, and slicing through the Hungarian Third Army. The Hungarians quickly aban...

The second main operation of the Battle of the Scheldt opened with fierce fighting to reduce the Breskens pocket. Here, the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division encountered tenacious German res...

As the last German soldiers take the swastika down from the Acropolis and begin to drive through the city towards the road north they pass through crowds of Athenians in a state of joy, w...

On September 19 German command replaced SS-Obergruppenführer Berger, who had been in charge of the troops fighting the Uprising, with General Höffle. By that time Germans had 48,000 soldi...

The Battle of Overloon was a Second World War battle between Allied forces and the German army which took place in and around the village of Overloon in the south-east of the Netherlands ...

Aachen was a battle in Aachen, Germany, which occurred between 2–21 October 1944. By September 1944, the Wehrmacht had been pushed into Germany proper, after being defeated in France by t...

The third major operation of the Battle of the Scheldt opened on October 24 when the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division began its advance down the South Beveland peninsula. The Canadians hope...

On September 19 German command replaced SS-Obergruppenführer Berger, who had been in charge of the troops fighting the Uprising, with General Höffle. By that time Germans had 48,000 soldi...

"C" Company of the The Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) of Canada took heavy casualties on the afternoon and evening of 31 October 1944 in an attempt to "bounce" the Causeway. During...

In this phase, the U.S. 4th Division was to clear the northern half of the forest between Schevenhütte and Hürtgen, capture Hürtgen and advance to the Rur River south of Düren. From Novem...

The Battle of Metz was a land battle fought between the allied forces and the German forces during World War II. It took place at the city of Metz following the Normandy landings. The att...

The depot at Fauld became the site of the largest explosion in the UK, when 3,670 tons of bombs stored underground exploded en masse. Two explosions occurred where bombs were stocked in b...

At the end of the five-week offensive, the First Canadian Army had taken 41,043 German prisoners. After the first ship arrived on November 28, convoys started bringing a steady stream of ...

The German assault began on 16 December 1944, at 05:30, with a massive artillery barrage on the Allied troops facing the Sixth SS Panzer Army. By 08:00 all three German armies attacked th...

The Malmedy massacre refers to a war crime in which about 90 American prisoners of war were murdered by their German captors. The massacre was committed on December 17, 1944 by Kampfgrupp...