World War II Battles

Operation Torch (Nov 8, 1942)

Following the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, American ground troops saw virtually no action for almost a year. It was not because President Roosevelt or the American public were unw...

North African Campaign (Jan 24, 1943 - May 13, 1943)

Seizing Vichy controlled Morocco and Algeria had provided the American war effort with a safe start. But the greater reward and the greater risk lay in taking Tunis. It was only 100 mil...

Invasion of Sicily (Jul 10, 1943 - Jul 17, 1943)

Roosevelt had launched America’s war effort with an invasion of North Africa because it offered an easy, safe start. Critics had argued that it committed the US to a broader war strategy—...

Invasion of Italy (Sep 3, 1943 - Aug 1944)

With North Africa secured and Sicily—the stepping stone to Italy—conquered, the Allied forces launched their invasion of Italy on 3 September 1943. It began with British forces skipping a...

Normandy (Jun 6, 1944 - Jul 25, 1944)

For two and a half years, the Russians had begged for a second front, a cross-channel invasion into France. For just as long, the Allied forces had delayed. First, the priority had been...

France (Jul 25, 1944 - Sep 25, 1944)

The Allied breakthrough at St. Lô turned the slugfest into a foot race. The Allied armies, especially General George Patton’s Third United States Army, moved at breakneck speed across the...

Germany, Battle of the Bulge ()

During the summer of 1944, while British and American troops stormed through France toward the German border, Soviet armies swept just as rapidly toward Germany from the east. Between June and Augu...