Battles of World War II

The war in brief

The Second World War (1939 to 1945) was fought between the Allies, led by Britain, the Soviet Union, the United States and China, and the Axis powers of Germany, Italy and Japan. In 1940 and 1941 the Axis was winning: Dunkirk saved the British army but not France, and the Battle of Britain and the sieges of Tobruk and Leningrad were fights to survive. In 1942 the war turned at the Coral Sea, Midway, Guadalcanal, El Alamein and Stalingrad, and Kursk confirmed the shift in 1943. From 1944 the Allies were on the attack, at Monte Cassino, D-Day, Arnhem, Leyte Gulf and the Bulge, until Iwo Jima, Okinawa and Berlin ended it.