This is a list of military engagements of World War II encompassing land, naval, and air engagements as well as campaigns, operations, defensive lines and sieges. Campaigns generally refer to broader strategic operations conducted over a large bit of territory and over a long period. Battles generally refer to short periods of intense combat localised to a specific area and over a specific period. However, use of the terms in naming such events is not consistent. For example, the Battle of the Atlantic was more or less an entire theatre of war, and the so-called battle lasted for the duration of the entire war. Another misnomer is the Battle of Britain, which by all rights should be considered a campaign, not a mere battle.
Battles
1939
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
Sieges
Siege of Warsaw
Siege of Leningrad
Siege of Lwów
Siege of Modlin
Siege of Novorossiysk
Siege of Odessa
Siege of Sevastopol
Siege of Tobruk
Siege of Budapest
Siege of Breslau
Siege of Bastogne
Siege of Budapest (1945)
Naval engagements
General
Arctic Convoys
Battle of the Atlantic – the name given to the conflict in the Atlantic Ocean between 1939 and 1945. see also Timeline of the Battle of the Atlantic Battle of the Mediterranean Battle of the Indian Ocean
Specific
1939
The Battle of the River Plate
1940
First Battle of Narvik
Second Battle of Narvik
1941
Battle of Cape Matapan
Battle of Pearl Harbor
1942
Battle of the Coral Sea
Battle of Midway
Battle of Guadalcanal
1943
Battle of the Komandorski Islands
1944
Battle of Leyte Gulf
1945
Operation Ten-Go
Major bombing campaigns
General
Strategic bombing during World War II
Strategic bombing survey for the overall impact of the bombing.
Specific
Baedeker raids
Chungking
Coventry
Operation Retribution (1941) – bombing of Belgrade during 1941. Broome – Japanese raid on the town of Broome, targeting the airfield. Dresden Darwin – Japanese target the harbour. Hamburg Helsinki – February 1944, was mostly ineffective due to air defence and deception. Hiroshima – One nuclear weapon, Little Boy dropped from a B-29, devastating a city. Kassel London – "The Blitz" and the V-1 and V-2 campaigns Lübeck Nagasaki – One nuclear weapon, Fat Man dropped from a B-29, devastating a city. Narva – March 1944. Evacuated town was destroyed by Soviet ADD. Pearl Harbor Rostock – Heinkel Airplane Construction Plant, Seaport, and City Rotterdam Stalingrad – 23 August 1942 Tallinn – February–March 1944. Bombed by Soviet ADD. Large-scale damage. Tokyo – Several devastating raids. Warsaw
Operations
Raids
Small to medium-sized raiding operations were carried out by both Allied and Axis armies during World War II. The modus operandi used included guerrilla attacks by partisans in occupied territory and/or combined operations involving the landing and removal of specialised light infantry, such as commandos, by means of small boats. Allied Operation Colossus 10 February 1941 Experimental raid by 38 British Commandos on a fresh water aqueduct near Calitri in southern Italy. Operation Claymore 4 March 1941 1000 Men from the British Commandos and belonging to the Norwegian Independent Company 1 destroy fish oil factories on the remote islands off the coast of Norway. Operation Archery 27 December 1941 570 men from the British Commandos and belonging to the Norwegian Independent Company 1 raid and attack German positions on Vågsøy Island in Norway. Battle of Timor 19 February 1942 – 10 February 1943 Continuous raids from Australian commandos against the occupying Japanese. Operation Chariot 28 March 1942 196 Royal Navy and Army Commando units raid and destroy the heavily defended docks of St. Nazaire in occupied France. Dieppe Raid 19 August 1942 Over 6,000 infantrymen, mostly Canadian attempted to seize and hold the port of Dieppe. Makin Island raid, 17–18 August 1942 Operation Jaywick, September 1943 Operation Jedburgh, 1944 Operation Roast, April 1945 Axis Operation Greif, December 1944