What was the most important battle of World War II?

There is no single answer, but Stalingrad (1942 to 1943) in Europe and Midway (1942) in the Pacific are the most common choices for the war’s turning points.

D-Day, 6 June 1944, was the start of the Battle of Normandy, the largest seaborne invasion in history, which opened the Western Front against Nazi Germany.

The Greatest Battles of World War II

Q: What was the biggest battle of World War II?

By the number of soldiers involved, the biggest battles were fought on the Eastern Front: Kursk in 1943 drew roughly two million to 2.7 million men, and the Red Army massed 1.5 to 2.5 million soldiers for the assault on Berlin in 1945.

Q: What was the turning point of World War II?

Historians usually point to a run of Allied victories from June 1942 to July 1943: Midway, El Alamein, Stalingrad and Kursk, after which the initiative passed to the Allies.

Q: What was the largest naval battle of World War II?

The Battle of Leyte Gulf in 1944, which is generally regarded as the largest naval battle in history.

Q: What was the largest tank battle of World War II?

The Battle of Kursk in 1943, often called the largest tank battle in history, which broke the last great German offensive in the east.

Q: What was the deadliest battle of World War II?

Stalingrad, with total casualties on both sides often put at around two million, is widely called the deadliest battle of the war and of all history.

Q: What was the longest battle of World War II?

The Battle of the Atlantic, fought from September 1939 to May 1945 between Allied convoys and German U-boats, which the Imperial War Museums call the longest campaign of World War II.

CPhoM Robert F. Sargent, US Coast Guard, 1944, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain (US government work).

At a glance
Rank	Battle	Date	Forces	Result
1	Stalingrad	1942 to 1943	Just under 300,000 Axis vs 54,000 Soviets, reinforced	6th Army destroyed
2	Normandy (D-Day)	1944	150,000 to 160,000 landed on D-Day, over 850,000 by end of June	Allied victory; Paris freed
3	Midway	1942	3 US carriers and Midway’s aircraft vs 4 Japanese carriers	US victory
4	The Battle of Britain	1940	768 to 1,400 RAF fighters vs just over 1,000 German, plus bombers	Invasion postponed for good
5	Berlin	1945	2.5 million Soviets and Poles vs 0.76 to 1 million Germans	Berlin fell, Germany surrendered
6	Pearl Harbor	1941	353 Japanese aircraft vs the US Pacific Fleet in harbor	Japanese raid; US enters the war
7	Kursk	1943	0.7 to 0.8 million Germans vs 1.3 to 1.35 million Soviets (two fronts, without reserves)	Soviet victory
8	The Bulge	1944 to 1945	200,000 Germans vs 80,000 Americans at first, 600,000 in all	Allied victory
9	Moscow	1941 to 1942	1.9 million Germans vs 1.25 million Soviets	Soviet victory; Germans driven back
10	The Battle of the Atlantic	1939 to 1945	Up to nearly 300 U-boats vs Allied convoys and escorts	Allied victory; U-boats defeated
11	The Battle of France	1940	About 3.3 million on each side	German victory; France signs armistice
12	Guadalcanal	1942 to 1943	About 16,000 Marines at first; about 37,700 Japanese in all	Allied victory; Japan evacuates
13	El Alamein	1942	190,000 to 195,000 Allies vs 104,000 to 116,000 Axis	Allied victory; Rommel retreats
14	Iwo Jima	1945	About 70,000 Marines vs 18,000 to 22,000 Japanese	US victory; garrison destroyed
15	Leyte Gulf	1944	282 ships, nearly 200,000 men	Allied victory; Japanese fleet broken

See the whole era on one page: World War II, with a map of every battle, a timeline and its commanders ›

Quick answer

What were the most important battles of World War II?

In our ranking the greatest battles of World War II are Stalingrad and the Normandy landings, level on points, followed by Midway, the Battle of Britain and Berlin. Stalingrad and Midway are the most common choices for the war’s turning points, and Leyte Gulf is generally regarded as the largest naval battle.

World War II was decided in a handful of vast battles on land, at sea and in the air. This is a guide to the greatest and most decisive of them, from the Battle of the Atlantic, fought from September 1939, to the fall of Berlin in 1945, each linked to its full story and ranked by score; see how we chose them. Some of the Pacific war’s hardest fighting fell on the Philippines, from the surrender on Bataan in 1942 to the month-long battle for Manila in 1945.¹

1 Stalingrad, 1942 to 1943

Where: Stalingrad (today Volgograd), on the Volga, Soviet Union
War: World War II, Eastern Front
Sides: Germany and its Axis allies vs the Soviet Union
Strength: Just under 300,000 Axis troops against the city vs the Soviet 62nd Army, about 54,000 men at first and constantly reinforced
Result: Soviet victory; the German 6th Army surrendered 31 January to 2 February 1943, about 91,000 taken prisoner

In summer 1942 Hitler’s armies drove toward the Volga and the oil of the Caucasus. The German 6th Army under Friedrich Paulus, about 270,000 men with 500 tanks by dzieje.pl's count (Krinko and Medvedev give about 430,000), reached the approaches to Stalingrad on 17 July. By mid-November, after weeks of fighting from house to house, they held about 90 percent of the city. The Soviet 62nd Army under Vasily Chuikov, about 54,000 men at the start, held a strip of riverbank, constantly reinforced from across the Volga.²

Military map of southern Russia with German army arrows reaching Stalingrad and the Caucasus — The German advance to Stalingrad and the Caucasus from 24 July to 18 November 1942, a map from the US Military Academy's Department of History. Public domain (US government work). Department of History, US Military Academy, via Wikimedia Commons.

On 19 November the Red Army struck the Romanian armies on the 6th Army’s flanks, and within days some 250,000 Germans and more than 30,000 Romanian and Soviet auxiliaries were trapped in a pocket. Hitler forbade a breakout, and a relief attack under Erich von Manstein was stopped 48 kilometers short in December. Paulus surrendered on 31 January 1943, a day after Hitler made him a field marshal, and the last pocket gave up on 2 February.

About 150,000 Germans had died in the pocket; some 91,000 went into captivity, and perhaps 6,000 of them ever came home. Soviet dead number more than 400,000 by the estimate of Germany’s national history museum; dzieje.pl puts Soviet losses at over 1.1 million men, about 480,000 of them killed. The initiative in the east passed to the Red Army. Since 1967 The Motherland Calls has stood over the battlefield on Mamayev Kurgan.³

Why it ranks here: Full marks on all five criteria: the destruction of a whole German army is the turning point most accounts name. It ties with Normandy and goes first because, with recognition and consequence equal, the tie goes to the older battle.

Read the full story of the Battle of Stalingrad ›

Military map of southern Russia in 1942 showing the German drive to the Volga and the Caucasus — The German advance to Stalingrad and into the Caucasus, 24 July to 18 November 1942, with an inset of the city and its approaches, from the US Military Academy atlas. Public domain (US government work). Department of History, US Military Academy, via Wikimedia Commons.

2 Normandy (D-Day), 1944

Where: The Normandy coast and its hinterland, northern France
War: World War II, Western Front
Sides: The United States, Britain, Canada and 12 other Allied nations vs Germany
Strength: About 150,000 to nearly 160,000 Allied troops landed on 6 June and more than 850,000 by the end of June (National WWII Museum), vs 58 German divisions in the West, most of them near Calais
Result: Allied victory; German forces trapped at Falaise in August, Paris liberated on 25 August 1944

In May 1943 Churchill and Roosevelt agreed to invade France the next spring. The Germans expected the blow at Calais, the narrowest point of the Channel, where the Atlantic Wall was strongest and most of their 58 divisions in the West stood.

Instead, on 6 June 1944, Allied troops from the United States, Britain, Canada and 12 other nations came ashore on five Normandy beaches, Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword, carried by over 7,000 vessels: nearly 160,000 by the National WWII Museum’s count, about 150,000 by the German Historical Museum’s. It was the largest amphibious invasion in history. The first day cost the Allies over 10,300 killed, wounded or missing, about 2,400 of them on Omaha Beach, though the National WWII Museum warns that D-Day figures are approximations.⁴

By the end of June more than 850,000 Allied soldiers were ashore by the National WWII Museum's count (the German Historical Museum says close to a million), but Caen, a target for the first day, fell only in mid-July, and the Americans broke through at Avranches on 31 July. In mid-August the Allies encircled and destroyed much of the German army near Falaise, with Canadian troops and the Polish 1st Armoured Division of General Stanisław Maczek closing the gap from the north. Paris was liberated on 25 August, with French forces in a prominent role, and most of France was free by the end of the month.⁵

Why it ranks here: Full marks on every criterion: the largest seaborne invasion in history opened the second front and within three months had broken the German army in France. It shares the top score with Stalingrad and stands second only because, with recognition and consequence equal, the tie goes to the older battle.

Read the full story of D-Day and the Battle of Normandy ›

3 Midway, 1942

Where: Around Midway Atoll, central Pacific
War: World War II, Pacific War
Fleets: US Pacific Fleet (Nimitz) vs Japanese Combined Fleet (Yamamoto)
Strength: 3 US carriers and the aircraft of the Midway base vs 4 Japanese fleet carriers
Result: US victory; 4 Japanese carriers sunk for 1 US carrier; about 3,057 Japanese and 362 American men lost

Six months after Pearl Harbor, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto planned to strike Midway, the American outpost in the middle of the Pacific, and destroy the US carriers when they came out to save it. But Navy cryptanalysts in Hawaii had been breaking Japanese codes since early 1942. They knew the target was called “AF,” and when Midway sent out a false message that it was short of fresh water, the Japanese duly reported that “AF” was short of water. Three American carriers were waiting.⁶

Aircraft carrier heeling under a sky full of anti-aircraft bursts — USS Yorktown is hit by a Japanese aerial torpedo during the attack by planes from the carrier Hiryu at Midway on 4 June 1942. US Navy photograph. Public domain

Early on 4 June 1942 planes from four Japanese carriers bombed Midway. While they were back aboard to rearm, dive-bombers from Enterprise and Yorktown found the fleet and set Akagi, Kaga and Soryu ablaze. Hiryu, the only survivor, struck back twice and crippled Yorktown, then was caught herself that afternoon. Japan lost four carriers, a cruiser, hundreds of aircraft and about 3,057 men; the United States lost Yorktown, a destroyer, 144 aircraft and about 362 men.

The Navy’s own historians call Midway the strategic high-water mark of Japan’s war: before it Japan could choose where and when to attack, after it the two fleets were equals and the Americans soon took the offensive. In the United States the day is still marked: in June 2025 the US Navy Memorial in Washington laid a wreath for the 83rd anniversary.⁷

Why it ranks here: Full marks for recognition, decisiveness, consequence and certainty: four fleet carriers knocked out in one day ended Japan’s offensive in the Pacific. Memory is 4, because it is a living anniversary in the United States and much less present elsewhere.

Read the full story of the Battle of Midway ›

Strategic map of the North Pacific showing Japanese forces converging on Midway and American forces near Hawaii — Yamamoto’s plan: the Japanese fleets converging on Midway and the Aleutians in June 1942, and Fletcher’s carrier striking force waiting northeast of the atoll. Map from the US Military Academy. Public domain (US government work). Department of History, US Military Academy, via Wikimedia Commons.

4 The Battle of Britain, 1940

Where: The skies over southern England and the English Channel
War: World War II
Sides: Britain’s Royal Air Force, with airmen from 16 nations, vs the German Luftwaffe
Strength: Fighter Command: about 768 aircraft in July 1940 and some 1,400 within weeks; Luftwaffe: just over 1,000 single-engine fighters plus its bombers
Result: British victory; the German invasion of Britain postponed indefinitely on 17 September 1940

After France fell in June 1940 and Britain refused to make peace, Hitler ordered planning for Operation Sea Lion, a landing in southern England, and the Luftwaffe first had to win command of the air. Britain officially dates the battle from 10 July to 31 October 1940. The Germans went first for Channel shipping and ports, from 13 August for the RAF’s airfields in the southeast, and from 7 September for London itself.⁸

Ground crew working on a Spitfire fighter parked on a grass airfield — A Spitfire of No. 19 Squadron RAF is re-armed between sorties at Fowlmere, near Duxford, in September 1940. RAF official photograph by Stanley Devon. Public domain

On 15 September, now kept as Battle of Britain Day, the Luftwaffe lost 56 of the 1,700 aircraft it sent, by the count of Germany’s national history museum; its great daylight raids ended soon afterward, and on 17 September Hitler postponed Sea Lion indefinitely; it was never formally canceled. One Fighter Command airman in five came from overseas: 145 Poles flew in the battle, and the Polish No. 303 Squadron became the top-scoring unit in the RAF.

Myth and fact: Churchill’s “few” were not as outnumbered as legend has it, and British factories built about twice as many fighters as German ones; the National WWII Museum counts some 1,400 RAF fighter pilots against about 1,200 German single-engine pilots. The losses are still argued over: one reference work gives 788 British and 1,294 German aircraft, while the German museum puts Luftwaffe losses at 2,265 for the whole air war against Britain into 1941.⁹

Why it ranks here: It stopped the invasion of Britain and kept the base for D-Day, so recognition, consequence and memory are full; decisiveness is 4 because it prevented a campaign rather than ending one, certainty 4 because loss figures differ widely. Level with Berlin on points, it goes higher on consequence.

Read the full story of the Battle of Britain ›

5 Berlin, 1945

Where: The Oder front and the city of Berlin, Germany
War: World War II, Eastern Front
Sides: The Soviet Union, with the Polish 1st and 2nd Armies, vs Germany
Strength: About 2.5 million Soviet and Polish soldiers with over 6,000 tanks and 7,500 aircraft vs 760,000 to 1 million Germans; 80,000 to 100,000 defenders in the city
Result: Soviet victory; Berlin surrendered on 2 May 1945, and Germany surrendered unconditionally on 8 to 9 May

By the end of January 1945 the Red Army stood on the Oder and the Lusatian Neisse, less than 80 kilometers from Berlin. By April it had massed about 2.5 million soldiers with more than 6,000 tanks and 7,500 aircraft, against roughly a million Germans on the Oder front by the count of Germany’s national history museum, or about 760,000 by dzieje.pl’s, many of them barely trained Volkssturm militia short of fuel and ammunition. The city itself had only 80,000 to 100,000 defenders, about 40,000 of them Volkssturm.¹⁰

The offensive opened on 16 April. On the Seelow Heights more than 35,000 Soviet soldiers fell in five days, against 12,000 German dead. By 25 April the ring around Berlin was closed. On 30 April Hitler took his own life in his bunker, and that evening Red Army soldiers raised the red flag on the Reichstag; the last units in the city laid down their arms on 2 May.

Polish soldiers of the 1st Kościuszko Infantry Division fought near the Tiergarten and the Brandenburg Gate. Soviet and Polish killed and wounded passed 361,000; German losses are hard to estimate. Myth and fact: Yevgeny Khaldei’s photograph of a soldier raising the flag over the Reichstag is real but staged, with smoke added to the sky and a second wristwatch, a sign of looting, scratched out.¹¹

Why it ranks here: It ended the war in Europe and gave the Eastern Front its most famous photograph, so recognition, decisiveness and memory are full; consequence is 4 because Germany had already lost, certainty 4 because loss figures vary. Level with the Battle of Britain on points, it goes below it on consequence.

Read the full story of the Battle of Berlin ›

Hand-drawn 1945 situation map with arrows converging on Berlin — US VII Corps situation map of the Eastern and Western fronts on 22 April 1945, with the Soviet fronts of Zhukov, Konev and Rokossovsky closing on Berlin. US National Archives. Public domain (US government work). HQ VII Corps, US National Archives, 1945, via Wikimedia Commons.

6 Pearl Harbor, 1941

Where: US naval base at Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii
War: World War II, Pacific War
Sides: Japan vs the United States
Strength: 353 Japanese aircraft from six fleet carriers vs the US Pacific Fleet in harbor, whose three carriers were at sea
Result: Japanese success in the raid; 2,403 Americans killed and 19 US ships sunk or damaged; the United States entered the war

When Japanese troops occupied French Indochina in 1941, the United States and Britain stopped selling Japan oil, four fifths of which had come from America, and Tokyo chose a preemptive strike. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto conceived the attack, and all six of Japan’s fleet carriers crossed some 3,000 miles of ocean in secret to a point north of Hawaii.¹²

At 7:55 on Sunday 7 December 1941, 353 aircraft fell on the Pacific Fleet at its moorings. In an hour and 15 minutes they sank or damaged 19 US Navy ships, eight of them battleships, and killed 2,403 Americans, 68 of them civilians, for the loss of 29 aircraft and five midget submarines. Half the dead were aboard USS Arizona, which still holds more than 900 of her crew. Yet the three American carriers were at sea and untouched, and a planned third wave never flew.

The next day Roosevelt told Congress that 7 December was “a date which will live in infamy,” a line that first read “world history,” and war on Japan passed with a single vote against; on 11 December Germany and Italy declared war on the United States. Six months later the carriers that had escaped sank four Japanese carriers at Midway. Since 1994, 7 December has been National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, marked every year at the Pearl Harbor National Memorial.¹³

Why it ranks here: Recognition, consequence, memory and certainty are full: the raid brought the United States into the war and is remembered every year. But it missed the carriers and decided no campaign, so decisiveness is 2; it ties on points with Kursk, the Bulge and Moscow. Level with Kursk on recognition and consequence, it goes first as the older battle, and it leads the Bulge on consequence and Moscow on recognition.

Read the full story of the attack on Pearl Harbor ›

7 Kursk, 1943

Where: The Kursk salient, between Orel and Belgorod, Soviet Union (today Russia)
War: World War II, Eastern Front
Sides: Germany vs the Soviet Union
Strength: 700,000 to 800,000 German troops with 2,000 to 2,400 tanks vs 1.3 to 1.35 million Soviet troops of the Central and Voronezh Fronts, reserves not counted, with 3,400 to 4,000 tanks and assault guns
Result: Soviet victory; the German offensive was called off on 13 July 1943 and Soviet counteroffensives followed

By spring 1943 Soviet offensives had pushed the Germans back almost to the lines of winter 1941, leaving a salient around Kursk whose front Germany’s national history museum puts at some 150 kilometers. Operation Citadel was to cut it off with pincers from Orel and Belgorod and win back the initiative. Germany staked nearly everything on it: about 800,000 men and over 2,000 tanks, some 70 percent of its armor on the Eastern Front.

Warned in part by British codebreakers, the Red Army dug defenses in depth. World History Encyclopedia counts 1.3 million troops in its two fronts in the salient, the Central and Voronezh Fronts, with six reserve armies stationed further east; the Deutsches Historisches Museum puts the Soviet force at about 1.35 million.¹⁴

The attack began on 5 July 1943. In the north Walter Model’s 9th Army gained only about ten kilometers, in the south Hermann Hoth’s 4th Panzer Army just over 30. On 12 July a large Soviet tank force stopped the southern pincer at Prokhorovka. With the Allies ashore in Sicily since 10 July, Hitler called off the offensive on 13 July; the Soviet summer offensive began at once, and the initiative passed to the Red Army for good.

Myth and fact: Kursk is often called the largest tank battle in history, with nearly 6,000 tanks spread over weeks; at Prokhorovka the Soviet commander Pavel Rotmistrov claimed 700 to 800 tanks a side, but researchers using unit records count about 910 in all, 294 German and 616 Soviet.¹⁵

Why it ranks here: The last German strategic offensive in the east, so recognition and consequence are full; disputed tank numbers and the Prokhorovka legend hold certainty to 3. Level on points with Pearl Harbor and the Bulge, it goes after Pearl Harbor as the younger battle and before the Bulge on consequence, and ahead of Moscow on recognition.

Read the full story of the Battle of Kursk ›

8 The Bulge, 1944 to 1945

Where: The Ardennes, Belgium and Luxembourg
War: World War II, Western Front
Sides: The United States, with British and other Allied forces, vs Germany
Strength: Over 200,000 Germans with about 600 tanks vs barely 80,000 Americans at the start; over 600,000 American troops in all
Result: Allied victory; the line restored by 25 January 1945; over 80,000 US casualties

Hitler gathered his last reserves for one more blow through the wooded Ardennes, where the Germans had broken through in 1940: cross the Meuse, take Antwerp, the Allies’ supply port, split the British from the Americans and push the West toward a separate peace so that he could turn on the Red Army. By mid-December more than 200,000 German soldiers with about 600 tanks faced barely 80,000 Americans on that stretch of front.¹⁶

The attack on 16 December 1944 came as a complete surprise, and low cloud kept Allied aircraft on the ground. The Germans drove a bulge 50 miles deep into the line, which gave the battle its name, but never crossed the Meuse. At encircled Bastogne, Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe answered a German demand to surrender with one word, “Nuts!” and held out until Patton’s Third Army broke through.

More than 600,000 American troops took part; the National WWII Museum calls it the largest battle the US Army has ever fought, and the National Park Service the largest and bloodiest single engagement of US forces in the war. The United States suffered over 80,000 casualties, among them 19,246 dead by the Army’s official count and more than 23,000 captured, about a tenth of its combat casualties in the war; German casualties are estimated at 80,000 to 100,000.¹⁷

Why it ranks here: The largest battle the US Army fought in the war and a household name, so recognition, memory and certainty are full; it broke Germany’s last reserves in the west but only delayed an outcome already set, so consequence is 3. Level on points with Kursk, it goes after it on consequence, and ahead of Moscow on recognition.

Read the full story of the Battle of the Bulge ›

9 Moscow, 1941 to 1942

Where: The approaches to Moscow, Soviet Union (today Russia)
War: World War II, Eastern Front
Sides: Germany (Army Group Center) vs the Soviet Union
Strength: About 1.9 million Germans vs 1.25 million Soviet troops when Operation Typhoon began
Result: Soviet victory; the Germans driven back from Moscow with more than 300,000 casualties

On 2 October 1941 Army Group Center opened Operation Typhoon, a drive on the Soviet capital with some 1.9 million men against about 1.25 million Soviet defenders. David Stahel calls Typhoon the largest German field command of the war, with almost two million men under one commander. Within days the Germans had encircled huge Soviet forces at Vyazma and Bryansk, and many Muscovites tried to flee while Stalin stayed in the city.¹⁸

Then the advance slowed. Autumn rain turned the roads to mud, the panzer divisions were worn out, and Georgy Zhukov built a defense backed by fresh divisions brought from the east. By early December German spearheads stood, according to World History Encyclopedia, within about 32 km (20 miles) of the city.

In the first week of December Zhukov struck back, and the counteroffensive drove the frozen, overstretched Germans away from the capital; EBSCO puts the cost of the retreat at more than 300,000 German casualties, and the German army never came so close to Moscow again. Myth and fact: winter did not save Moscow on its own; the Germans were already spent and the Red Army was never absent from the road to the city.¹⁹

Why it ranks here: The first strategic defeat of the Wehrmacht ended Hitler’s hope of a quick win over the Soviet Union, so decisiveness and consequence score 5. It ties on points with Pearl Harbor, Kursk and the Bulge but comes after all three on the first tie rule, recognition: in the West it is far less known than Stalingrad, so it scores 4.

Read the full story of the Battle of Moscow ›

Military map of the German advance toward Moscow in autumn 1941 — The German advance on Moscow from late August to 5 December 1941, including the Vyazma and Bryansk encirclements of Operation Typhoon. Map from the US Military Academy atlas. Public domain (US government work). Department of History, US Military Academy, via Wikimedia Commons.

10 The Battle of the Atlantic, 1939 to 1945

Where: The Atlantic Ocean, from the Arctic convoy routes to the Caribbean
War: World War II
Fleets: British, Canadian and US navies and air forces, with other Allies, vs German U-boats and raiders
Strength: Up to nearly 300 U-boats at the peak in autumn 1942, vs Allied convoys, escorts and aircraft
Result: Allied victory; about 72,000 Allied and 30,000 German dead

The Battle of the Atlantic began on 3 September 1939, the day Britain and France declared war on Germany, and ended only with Germany’s surrender in May 1945, which makes it the longest battle of World War II. It was a fight over the convoys carrying food, fuel and weapons from North America to Britain. If the U-boats cut that line, Britain could not stay in the war and the Allies could not build up the armies to free Europe.²⁰

From 1940 the U-boats hunted in “wolf packs” at night, and in the worst months of 1942 they sank almost 100 merchant ships a month. By the autumn of that year Karl Dönitz had nearly 300 submarines and could send 20 or more against a single convoy. Then the tide turned.

Codebreaking, long-range aircraft and hunter groups of escorts came together in the spring of 1943, and in “Black May” more than 40 U-boats were lost, forcing Dönitz to change course in the North Atlantic. Both sides paid heavily: more than 70,000 Allied sailors, merchant seamen and airmen and some 30,000 German sailors died. Counts of the ships sunk differ, but the Atlantic Council gives about 3,500 Allied merchant ships and 783 U-boats.²¹

Why it ranks here: A six-year campaign rather than one battle, it is here because history calls it a battle and because it decided whether Britain could eat and the Allies could land in France, so consequence 5; decisiveness is 4 because no single action decided it. It ties on points with the Battle of France, Guadalcanal and El Alamein, leads Guadalcanal and El Alamein on consequence, and goes ahead of France as the older campaign.

11 The Battle of France, 1940

Where: France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg
War: World War II, Western Front
Sides: Germany, joined by Italy on 10 June, vs France, Britain, Belgium and the Netherlands
Strength: About 3.3 million men on each side, by HistoryNet’s count
Result: German victory; armistice on 22 June 1940; 338,226 Allied troops evacuated from Dunkirk

On 10 May 1940 Germany attacked the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. The blow in the north was a lure: it drew the best French and British forces, among them a British Expeditionary Force of 390,000 men, forward into Belgium. The real thrust came through the wooded and lightly defended Ardennes. Panzer divisions crossed the Meuse at Sedan and Dinant and raced west, reaching the Channel near Abbeville and cutting the Allied armies in two.²²

Trapped against the coast, British and French troops fought a rearguard around Dunkirk while warships and a hastily gathered fleet of civilian boats took them off the beaches. By 4 June, 338,226 British and Allied soldiers had been landed in England. The rest of the campaign was swift. Germany struck south on 5 June, Italy declared war on 10 June, Paris fell on 14 June, and on 22 June France signed an armistice at Compiègne. In six weeks one of the great armies of Europe had been beaten, and Britain was left to fight on alone.²³

Why it ranks here: Six weeks that knocked France out of the war and left Britain alone earn full marks for decisiveness, consequence and certainty; Dunkirk, the part everyone remembers, is told inside this entry. The campaign itself is remembered less as a battle than as the fall of France, so memory 3. It ties on points with the Atlantic, Guadalcanal and El Alamein, comes after the Atlantic as the later campaign, and leads the other two on consequence.

12 Guadalcanal, 1942 to 1943

Where: Guadalcanal and the surrounding waters, Solomon Islands
War: World War II, Pacific War
Sides: The United States, with Australian and New Zealand forces, vs Japan
Strength: About 16,000 US Marines at the landing, later reinforced by the Army; about 37,700 Japanese landed in all
Result: Allied victory; Japan evacuated the island in February 1943

On 7 August 1942, two months after Midway, the 1st Marine Division landed on Guadalcanal in America’s first major amphibious assault of the war. The Marines quickly took an unfinished Japanese airstrip and named it Henderson Field. The next night Japanese cruisers sank four Allied heavy cruisers off Savo Island, the transports pulled out, and some 16,000 Marines were left on the island with short supplies.²⁴

For six months the island was fought over on land, at sea and in the air. Japan landed troops at night down “the Slot” and hurled them at the airfield’s perimeter, at Bloody Ridge in September and again in late October, and lost heavily each time.

Seven major naval battles were fought around the island, so many ships went down that the strait was called Ironbottom Sound, and in the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal in November the US Navy turned back Japan’s last attempt to shell Henderson Field out of action. In early February 1943 the Japanese slipped their survivors out by destroyer. The National WWII Museum puts the campaign’s cost to the Allies at about 7,100 men, 29 ships and 615 aircraft, and Japanese losses at 31,000 men, 38 ships and 683 aircraft.²⁵

Why it ranks here: Six months on land, at sea and in the air took the initiative in the Pacific from Japan for good, so decisiveness 5, but consequence 4 because Midway had already turned the naval war. It ties with El Alamein on every score and goes first because it began earlier, in August 1942 against October; both stand after the Atlantic and France, which share their total but score higher on consequence.

Read the full story of the Battle of Guadalcanal ›

13 El Alamein, 1942

Where: El Alamein, western Egypt, about 95 km west of Alexandria
War: World War II, North African campaign
Sides: Britain and the Commonwealth, with Greek, Polish and French troops, vs Germany and Italy
Strength: About 190,000 to 195,000 Allied troops and over 1,000 tanks vs 104,000 to 116,000 Axis troops
Result: Allied victory; the Axis army driven out of Egypt; about 13,500 Eighth Army casualties

By the summer of 1942 Erwin Rommel’s German and Italian army had pushed deep into Egypt, threatening the Suez Canal. It was stopped at El Alamein, a gap between the sea and the impassable Qattara Depression that could not be outflanked. Bernard Montgomery took over the Eighth Army in August and built up a clear superiority: more than 190,000 men and over 1,000 tanks against roughly 104,000 to 116,000 Axis troops with about 500 tanks, short of fuel and dug in behind deep minefields Rommel called the “devil’s gardens.”²⁶

The battle opened on the night of 23 October with a huge barrage, and infantry and engineers cleared lanes through the mines. For almost two weeks it was a grinding fight of attrition, with the Australian 9th Division holding the vital northern sector. Operation Supercharge broke the Axis line on 4 November and Rommel retreated west; the Axis army in Africa surrendered in Tunisia in May 1943.

Churchill said of it: “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” The National Army Museum notes that calling El Alamein the turning point of the whole war may be an overstatement, since North Africa was a sideshow beside the Eastern and Western Fronts.²⁷

Why it ranks here: It decided the desert war and was Britain’s first great land victory, so decisiveness 5, but it was fought in a smaller theater than the Eastern Front, so consequence 4. It ties with Guadalcanal on every score and goes after it because Guadalcanal began earlier, in August 1942 against October.

Read the full story of the Battle of El Alamein ›

British tanks advancing across the desert in clouds of dust — British tanks move up to engage the German armor after the infantry had cleared gaps in the minefields, 24 October 1942. Army Film and Photographic Unit. Public domain (UK government photograph, Crown copyright expired). Sgt Gladstone, No. 1 Army Film and Photographic Unit, Imperial War Museums E 18481, via Wikimedia Commons.

14 Iwo Jima, 1945

Where: Iwo Jima, Volcano Islands, about 660 miles (1,060 km) south of Tokyo
War: World War II, Pacific War
Sides: The United States vs Japan
Strength: About 70,000 US Marines vs 18,000 to 22,000 Japanese defenders
Result: US victory; 6,821 Americans killed; about 18,000 to 20,000 Japanese dead

Iwo Jima is a small volcanic island halfway between the Mariana Islands and Japan. The United States wanted it to silence a garrison that gave Japan early warning of B-29 raids, to shut airfields used against the Marianas, and to give crippled bombers a place to land. Its commander, General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, knew he could not win, so he dug his garrison into caves, bunkers and miles of tunnels to make the invasion as costly as possible.²⁸

Marines of the 5th Marine Division lying prone on a steep slope of black volcanic sand above Red Beach No. 1 on Iwo Jima, 19 February 1945, packs and equipment piled in the foreground — Marines of the 5th Marine Division work their way up the terraced slope from Red Beach No. 1 toward Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima, 19 February 1945. US Marine Corps photograph. Public domain (US government work). US Marine Corps, Department of Defense HD-SN-99-02876, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Marines landed on 19 February 1945, expecting a short fight. It took 36 days. On 23 February they reached the top of Mount Suribachi, and Joe Rosenthal’s photograph of the flag going up won a Pulitzer Prize and became the model for the Marine Corps War Memorial. Myth and fact: the famous picture shows a second flag raised that afternoon, not the first one hoisted that morning, and the Marine Corps has since corrected the names of two of the six men in it.

The island was declared secure on 26 March. The US landing force lost 6,821 killed and 19,217 wounded, and of a Japanese garrison of about 20,000 almost all died; the Marines captured only 216, by the National WWII Museum's count. Twenty-seven Medals of Honor were awarded for Iwo Jima, and no other campaign earned more.²⁹

Why it ranks here: The flag raising makes it one of the best-known battles of the war, so recognition and memory score 5. It took an island for bomber airfields and decided no campaign, so decisiveness and consequence score 3; its fame still puts it one point above Leyte Gulf.

Read the full story of the Battle of Iwo Jima ›

15 Leyte Gulf, 1944

Where: Waters around Leyte and Samar and the Sibuyan Sea, Philippines
War: World War II, Pacific War
Fleets: US Third and Seventh Fleets, with two Australian ships, vs the Japanese Combined Fleet
Strength: 282 ships (216 American, 2 Australian, 64 Japanese) and nearly 200,000 men
Result: Allied victory; Japan lost 26 to 29 warships, among them 4 carriers and 3 battleships

On 20 October 1944 American troops landed on Leyte to begin the liberation of the Philippines. Japan answered with Sho-1, a plan that staked almost its entire fleet: a decoy force of carriers with few planes aboard would lure Admiral William Halsey’s Third Fleet north, while two forces of battleships slipped through the islands to smash the landing fleet in the gulf.³⁰

Was Leyte Gulf the largest naval battle in history? By the usual measures, yes. Between 23 and 26 October some 282 ships fought, 216 American, 2 Australian and 64 Japanese, with almost 200,000 men across more than 100,000 square miles of sea.

It was really four battles: in the Sibuyan Sea aircraft sank the giant battleship Musashi; in Surigao Strait the last battle lines of dreadnoughts met; off Cape Engaño Halsey sank all four decoy carriers; and off Samar escort carriers and destroyers held off Admiral Kurita’s battleships until he turned back. Japan lost 26 to 29 warships, among them four carriers and three battleships, and more than 10,500 men. The battle also saw the first kamikaze attacks, and it broke Japanese naval power for good.³¹

Why it ranks here: By most measures the largest naval battle in history, it ended the Japanese navy as a fighting fleet, so decisiveness 5. It is far less known and remembered than Midway, so recognition 4 and memory 3, and that puts it last of the fifteen.

Read the full story of the Battle of Leyte Gulf ›

How we chose and ranked these battles of World War II

We counted any battle of World War II, on land, at sea or in the air, on every front from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Three campaigns are in because history itself calls them one battle: Britain, France and the Atlantic. Operation Barbarossa as a whole is not, since it was many battles, and the 872-day siege of Leningrad is left to our guide to the greatest sieges in history. Some entries also appear in our guides to the greatest battles of the Eastern Front and the greatest naval battles; that overlap is deliberate, because this page ranks the whole war and those pages go deeper into one part of it.³²

We considered 25 candidates and scored each one from 1 to 5 on five criteria. Recognition counts three times, because this page answers the question of which battles of the war are the greatest; decisiveness, consequence and memory count twice; certainty counts once:

Recognition (×3). 5 if the name is known far beyond military history and appears on most published lists of its kind, 1 if only specialists know it.
Decisiveness (×2). 5 if it decided a campaign or the course of the war, 1 if it decided nothing beyond the ground it was fought on.
Consequence (×2). 5 if it changed what the war became (who fought it, how long, how it ended), 1 if the war would have gone the same way without it.
Memory (×2). 5 if it is still a living tradition (a day of remembrance, a monument, a famous image, a song), 1 if it is forgotten.
Certainty (×1). 5 if the numbers and events are confirmed by independent sources, 1 if they rest on one source or are disputed.

The list is ranked by total score, not by date. Ties go to the better-known battle, then to the one with the greater consequence, then to the older one, which is why Stalingrad stands above Normandy on equal full marks. The scores are our editorial judgment, made on the evidence in the sources below, and the table shows every one of them, so you can see why Pearl Harbor, the most famous date of the war, sits only sixth: it was a raid that missed the American carriers and decided no campaign, and it ranks on its fame and on bringing the United States into the war.

The scores behind the ranking
Rank	Name	Recognition ×3	Decisiveness ×2	Consequence ×2	Memory ×2	Certainty ×1	Total
1	Stalingrad	5	5	5	5	5	50
2	Normandy (D-Day)	5	5	5	5	5	50
3	Midway	5	5	5	4	5	48
4	The Battle of Britain	5	4	5	5	4	47
5	Berlin	5	5	4	5	4	47
6	Pearl Harbor	5	2	5	5	5	44
7	Kursk	5	4	5	4	3	44
8	The Bulge	5	4	3	5	5	44
9	Moscow	4	5	5	4	4	44
10	The Battle of the Atlantic	4	4	5	4	5	43
11	The Battle of France	4	5	5	3	5	43
12	Guadalcanal	4	5	4	4	5	43
13	El Alamein	4	5	4	4	5	43
14	Iwo Jima	5	3	3	5	5	42
15	Leyte Gulf	4	5	4	3	5	41

Close calls

Five battles came close and did not make the fifteen:

Okinawa, 1945. The largest battle of the Pacific war lasted 82 days from 1 April 1945 and cost about 12,000 American and 90,000 to 110,000 Japanese and Okinawan soldiers’ lives; estimates of civilian deaths run from over 100,000 to 150,000. It decided its campaign but not the war, and the civilian toll is so uncertain that certainty scores 4.³³

Operation Bagration, 1944. Between 23 June and 19 August 1944 the Red Army destroyed 28 of the 34 divisions of three German armies in Army Group Center and reached the Vistula opposite Warsaw. It was as decisive as Stalingrad, but it is little noticed outside Russia, so recognition scores 3; it ranks sixth in our guide to the greatest battles of the Eastern Front.³⁴

Monte Cassino, 1944. Four Allied assaults from January to May 1944 were needed to break the Gustav Line on the road to Rome. On 18 May 1944 the 2nd Polish Corps took the monastery ruins. By dzieje.pl’s count 923 Polish soldiers were killed and 345 went missing; the Polish Ministry of Culture puts the dead at over 1,000. The fallen lie in the Polish War Cemetery below the hill. Memory scores 5, above all in Poland. It missed the fifteen because the Italian front was secondary to France and the east, so decisiveness and consequence score 3, for 39 points.³⁵

The Warsaw Uprising, 1944. For 63 days from 1 August 1944 the Home Army fought the Germans for Warsaw street by street; about 16,000 insurgents were killed, died of wounds or went missing, and the Warsaw Rising Museum counts 130,000 to 150,000 civilian dead, murdered by the Germans or killed in the fighting. Memory scores 5 in Poland. It missed the fifteen because it could not change the course of the campaign: the Red Army halted across the Vistula, and Stalin refused Allied aircraft the use of Soviet airfields for supply drops. Decisiveness 2, for 36 points.³⁶

Imphal and Kohima, 1944. Fought from 8 March to 18 July 1944, these battles turned the Burma campaign: of the 85,000 men of the Japanese Fifteenth Army, 53,000 were killed or missing. In 2013 a National Army Museum contest voted them Britain’s greatest battle, with almost half of all votes. Few readers outside Britain and India know them, so recognition scores 2.³⁷ › Battle of Kohima, 1944

What was the biggest battle of World War II?

By the number of soldiers, the biggest battles of World War II were fought on the Eastern Front. Kursk in 1943 drew between roughly two million and 2.7 million men at the outset (more than three million once reinforcements arrived) and nearly 6,000 tanks, and for the final assault on Berlin in 1945 the Red Army massed between 1.5 and 2.5 million soldiers.³⁸

Stalingrad belongs in the same class: Britannica puts the combined Axis and Soviet casualties alone at about two million. Larger still was Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union launched on 22 June 1941. It sent some three million to 3.5 million German soldiers east, joined by several hundred thousand troops from Germany’s allies, but it was a campaign made up of many battles rather than a single battle. To see how these numbers compare with the great battles of earlier centuries, read our guide to the largest battles in history.³⁹

Map of the Kursk salient with German attacks from north and south — US Military Academy atlas map: the Eastern Front on 4 July 1943 (left) and the Battle of Kursk, 4 July to 1 August 1943 (right), with the two German Citadel pincers striking the salient from north and south. Public domain

What was the deadliest battle of World War II?

The Battle of Stalingrad, fought from the summer of 1942 to February 1943, is usually named the deadliest. Britannica estimates about 800,000 Axis and 1.1 million Soviet casualties, the Imperial War Museums call it the bloodiest battle of World War II, and Germany’s national history museum estimates that more than 400,000 Soviet soldiers were killed.⁴⁰

On the German side, the same museum counts about 150,000 soldiers who died inside the pocket from fighting, cold or hunger. Around 91,000 went into Soviet captivity, and perhaps 6,000 of them had returned to Germany by 1956. No exact total will ever be known, and estimates differ widely between sources. Sieges are usually counted separately. The siege of Leningrad lasted 872 days, from September 1941 to January 1944. The historian Anna Reid puts the civilian dead at 700,000 to 800,000, while The National WWII Museum estimates that about 1.5 million soldiers and civilians died.⁴¹

What was the turning point of World War II?

There was no single turning point; most accounts name a run of Allied victories between June 1942 and July 1943: Midway destroyed four Japanese fleet carriers, El Alamein ended Rommel’s threat to Egypt and the Middle East, Stalingrad destroyed a whole German army, and Kursk broke Germany’s last major offensive in the east. After them the Allies held the initiative.⁴²

Contemporaries sensed the change. After El Alamein, Winston Churchill told a luncheon at the Mansion House in London on 10 November 1942: “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” The National Army Museum observes that such words helped enshrine Alamein in British memory as a great turning point, and suggests this may be an overstatement, since North Africa was a sideshow beside the Eastern and Western Fronts. For Germany’s national history museum, Stalingrad was the moment the initiative passed to the Red Army, and many Germans at home recognized it as the turning point of the war in the east.⁴³

What was the largest tank battle of World War II?

The Battle of Kursk, fought in July and August 1943, is usually called the largest tank battle in history, with nearly 6,000 tanks on both sides. Because the fighting stretched over weeks and across a wide front, it is better described as the largest series of tank battles, rather than one single clash of armor.⁴⁴

Its most famous episode, at Prokhorovka on 12 July 1943, was smaller than legend claims. Older accounts put 1,200 to 2,000 tanks there; working from unit records, the researchers summarized by The Tank Museum count about 910, 294 German and 616 Soviet, and World History Encyclopedia gives some 300 Axis tanks against 900 Soviet ones. Some historians, among them David Glantz and Valeriy Zamulin, argue that the fighting around Brody and Dubno in June 1941 involved more tanks than Prokhorovka; The Tank Museum puts it at up to 3,500 Soviet and 750 German tanks.⁴⁵ › Battle of Prokhorovka, 1943

What was the largest naval battle of World War II?

The Battle of Leyte Gulf, fought off the Philippines from 23 to 26 October 1944, is generally called the largest naval battle in history. The US Naval History and Heritage Command counts nearly 200,000 men and 282 ships in four separate engagements spread over about 100,000 square miles (260,000 km²) of ocean.⁴⁶

The same command cautions that the title is probably deserved only for the tonnage of the ships and the size of the area. Japan staked most of its remaining fleet and lost three battleships, among them the giant Musashi, and four carriers. The United States lost one light carrier, two escort carriers, two destroyers and a destroyer escort. The Imperial Japanese Navy never again fought a full-scale fleet action.⁴⁷

Map of the Philippines with the routes of Japanese and American fleets around Leyte — The Battle of Leyte Gulf, 23 to 26 October 1944: the routes of the Japanese Northern, Center and Southern Forces converging on Leyte, and the movements of the American Third and Seventh Fleets. US Army map. Public domain (US government work). US Army, Reports of General MacArthur, via Wikimedia Commons.

How many troops landed on D-Day?

On 6 June 1944 between 150,000 and 160,000 Allied soldiers landed in Normandy from the sea and the air, on five beaches code-named Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword. A fleet of 5,000 to 7,000 ships and landing craft, depending on what is counted, carried them across the Channel in the largest seaborne invasion in history.⁴⁸

The National WWII Museum adds about 12,000 supporting aircraft and counts over 10,300 Allied casualties, killed, wounded or missing, on the first day, about 2,400 of them on Omaha Beach; it warns that many D-Day figures are approximations. The invasion was under the overall command of Dwight Eisenhower, appointed supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force on 24 December 1943.⁴⁹

Map of the English Channel and northern France showing Allied invasion routes and German army positions, June 1944 — The Allied invasion force and the German dispositions in northwestern France on 6 June 1944, from the US Military Academy atlas. Public domain

What was the longest battle of World War II?

The Battle of the Atlantic was the longest. It began with the war in September 1939 and lasted until Germany’s defeat in May 1945, as Allied convoys carrying supplies from North America fought German U-boats and surface raiders across the ocean. The Imperial War Museums call it the longest campaign of World War II.⁵⁰

The decisive phase came in the spring of 1943, when escort carriers, very-long-range aircraft, radar and codebreaking turned the tide; by the end of May 1943 the U-boats had been beaten. On land, the longest ordeal was the 872-day siege of Leningrad.⁵¹

The battles that decided the war

The war turned on a few of the battles above: Midway in the Pacific, Stalingrad in the east, El Alamein in the desert, and D-Day in the west. Together they carried the Allies from the brink to the fall of Berlin. Explore more in the greatest battles of all time or the deadliest battles in history, and test what you know with our World War II battles quiz.