Battle of Dunkirk May 26 to June 4, 1940

A German invasion around the french coastal town

Allies were able to successfully evacuate which was called Operation Dynamo

Germany claimed victory with remaining Allied troops surrendering

Battle of Britain, July 10 to October 31, 1940

Britain's Royal Air Force and Navy respond to heavy bombing attacks from Germany's Luftwaffe air force

including ''the Blitz'' in an attempt to destroy the RAF before invading.

Defense systems, including radar, and Hitler's decision to bomb London, rather than military bases

https://www.history.com/articles/world-war-ii-battles-timeline

Battle of Iwo Jima: February 19 to March 26, 1945

Fought 660 miles south of Tokyo

U.S. Marines invade the volcanic island of Iwo Jima seeking a strategic staging area for a possible attack on Japan's mainland

Weeks of bloody battle follow and while the Americans eventually gain control, 7,000 are killed, with 20,000 wounded

All but 216 of 18,000 Japanese soldiers are killed

Battle of Stalingrad, August 23, 1942 to February 2, 1943

the Red Army defends the Russian city of Stalingrad from German attack

bringing an end to the Axis's eastern Europe advances and handing it its first decisive defeat

One of the longest, biggest and deadliest battles of the war, it ends with close to 2 million casualties, including civilians

In early 1942

Adams’s proposal was to attach incendiary devices to bats and drop the winged weapons from airplanes.

The idea behind the “bat bombs” was that bats armed with timed incendiary devices would be released over a Japanese city.

1943

the U.S. Air Force joined Great Britain in its strategic bombing of German cities

Adolf Hitler and his Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels announced the construction of Wunderwaffen

In the early years of World War II

, German U-boats terrorized the North Atlantic

The most vulnerable zone was the “Mid-Atlantic gap”

a floating fortress a mile long and weighing 2.2 million tons

The spy gadgets created by the top-secret British Special Operations Executive (SOE)

real-life inspiration for the fictional James Bond

They stuffed the rats with plastic explosives and shipped them off to agents in German-occupied France

The D-Day Invasion of June 6, 1944

a full-scale amphibious invasion of Normandy

others could breach an anti-tank trench by deploying a bundle of logs as a bridge

Enter the “Panjandrum,” a rocket-propelled metal wheel armed with explosives

Early in World War II, the Soviets invested in a novel

albeit inhumane weapon: trained dogs operating as suicide bombers

The Soviet dogs were trained to target German tanks

As many as 40,000 Soviet anti-tank dogs were trained to make the ultimate sacrifice

It looks like something out of a Bugs Bunny cartoon

Germany’s attempt to make a gun that could shoot around corners

There were two versions of the Krummlauf

In American tests of captured German weapons, the Krummlauf performed poorly

October 2, 1941 to January 7, 1942

Following Germany's Operation Barbarossa

the Axis launches a campaign to capture the capital city of Moscow

he Germans are eventually beaten back and forced to retreat

May 20 to June 1, 1941

Nazi paratroopers invade the Greek island of Crete

marking history's first mostly airborne attack

. With nearly 4,000 Allies and more than 3,000 Germans killed

September 8, 1941 to January 27, 1944

German and Finnish soldiers begin a nearly 900-day siege and blockade of Leningrad (now St. Petersburg)

the second-biggest Soviet city and a major center of industry

the second-biggest Soviet city and a major center of industry

December 7, 1941

In a surprise wave of attacks on the U.S. naval base at Oahu Island

Hawaii's Pearl Harbor, Japan, aligned with the Axis

2,400 U.S. troops killed and another 1,000 wounded

May 12-28, 1942

he Soviet Red Army attacks Kharkov, Ukraine

the aid of 1,500 tanks and 1,000 aircraft but German intelligence alerts the Axis to the campaign

acing nearly 300,000 casualties and gaining little traction

June 4-7, 1942

American intelligence is able to break codes to thwart a Japanese attack on the US

With Japan focused on Midway, U.S. forces, including dive bombers, attack, sinking four of Japan's aircraft carriers

August 7, 1942 to February 9, 1943

U.S. forces launch a surprise attack

taking control of the airfield and forcing the Japanese into initial retreat

The Allies lose 29 ships and 7,100 soldiers

November 8-16, 1942

The Allies invade French North Africa in an attempt to draw the Axis away from Soviet attacks on the Eastern Front

Dwight D. Eisenhower leads attacks on Oran

July 5 to August 23, 1943

Military history's largest tank battle takes place on the Eastern Front

involving an estimated 6,000 tanks, 4,000 aircraft and 2 million soldiers

Germany attacks the Red Army near Kursk, Russia