What are the iconic World War II battles for other Allies?

by eleventeenth_beatle

Growing up in the United States, the iconic battles of World War II--the ones that everyone hears about--include the Battle of the Bulge, the Normandy invasion, Midway, Guadalcanal, and Iwo Jima, among others. I imagine that the mental landscape of people from other Allied countries is populated by a different set of iconic battles--with some overlap, of course. What battles are on other allies' mental maps?

b1uepenguin

Though technically part of the US; WW2 in Guam is remembered far more by the events surrounding Japanese occupation and then the later liberation.

I loosely identify the Chamorro on Guam as being allies since at the time they were not American citizens despite the island having been governed by the US Navy since the Spanish-American War. Citizenship and elected civilian government was extended to Guam after the war, at least in part because of the actions of Chamorro resisters in helping the US and hiding several US servicemen during the Japanese Occupation; and doing so at no small cost to their own lives.

The main battle remembered on the island is the "Battle of Guam," the battle during which the US retook the island from the Japanese after heavy naval bombardment and a beach landing. A running battle was fought along the US beachheads for the first week of the invasion (July 21-28), but after the US managed to secure the beaches and push the Japanese back far enough to land heavier equipment the battle was largely over. Fighting continued across the island for another week as the US moved in and captured the main airfield at Tiyan and then assaulted the main Japanese strongholds at Barrigada and then finally Santa Rosa.

A few Japanese escaped into the jungles vowing to fight an insurgent gorilla campaign against the US; but despite successfully ambushing several marines a few months later, they were largely inconsequential. Their stories are well remembered and marked by a memorial/theme park (a very bizarre place if I may say so), where the very last Japanese soldier; Sergeant Shoichi Yokoi, held out in a cave until 1972 when he was finally found and relieved of duty.

The Battle of Guam is celebrated every year on the island with a public holiday on July 21st (aka Liberation Day). The Battle of Guam is also marked by several historical parks, including monuments to the beach landings and of course the Yokoi Cave. It's hard to miss the island's military experience; there is still evidence of it around in the form of those memorials and the memories of older occupation survivors. Scuba diving near either of the beach battle sites (Piti or Agat) or harbors (like Apra), and it is hard to miss the bullets, shells, bombs, LCUs, and a few larger wrecks, that still litter the reefs and sea floor.

panzerkampfwagen

For Australia the most iconic are The Siege of Tobruk in Libya, north Africa from April 1941 to December 1941 and the Kokoda Track and surrounding battles in New Guinea from mid 1942 to January 1943.

The Siege of Tobruk saw the first Victoria Cross awarded to an Australian during WW2 while the Kokoda Track saw the first Victoria Cross awarded for an action on "Australian" territory ("Australian" territory because it was a mandated territory of Australia which is a bit different from actual Australian territory).

There's been numerous books written about both battles/campaigns.

Chestor Wilmot wrote a book called "Torbuk". He was a very famous war correspondent during WW2.

Peter Brune has probably written more books on Kokoda, etc than any other Australian historian I would imagine.

jonewer

A bit hard to say really, but most people in the UK have some knowledge of Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain, El Alamein and D-Day.

To a lesser extent, there is an awareness of Market Garden and Malta.

I'd think most people don't really know about Singapore, Khohima & Imphal, or anything else in the far east.

cazador5

In terms of scale and intensity the Eastern Front (Germany vs. USSR) was far beyond anything the other allies were fighting. Part of this is reflected in the fact that the Soviets called WWII the "Great Patriotic War" instead of WWII. It was simply magnitudes larger than the Pacific War or the Western Front in terms of men, machines and battles involved.

Considering that, there are numerous battles in the East that I'm sure resonate strongly, if for no other reason than their massive significance and size. Stalingrad is a classic example, where General Paulus of the German 6th Army was gradually pulled into a vicious street-to-street battle in the ruins of Stalingrad, and eventually surrounded and compelled to surrender. The battle lasted months and is arguably the most strategically decisive victory of the entire war because of how fundamentally it put German forces on the defensive. It was incredibly costly for both sides, with the USSR alone losing upwards of 1,000,000 troops dead or wounded. That's almost just inconceivable for our concepts of the war. Consider that the Normandy Campaign, as you mentioned an iconic part of the war for Americans and often considered costly (remember all those scenes of the beaches), cost at maximum 120,000 dead or wounded, around a tenth of the casualties at Stalingrad.

Some others include the Siege of Leningrad, which withstood bombardment and assault for years and never fell. The inhabitants of the city were forced to grow food in communal plots in the town square because of the dire food situation.

The Battle of Kursk is another simply massive engagement we rarely encounter in most US history classes/textbooks. The battle took place over an area half the size of Great Britain, and involved around 1 million troops on either side. It was a slugging match and ended in a decisive Germans defeat, and showed that the Soviets were capable of resisting the rapid movements of Blitzkrieg that had been so devastating earlier in the war. The Battle of Prokhorovka was part of the Battle of Kursk, and remains one of the largest ever tank-to-tank engagements in history.

Those are a couple and there are of course other examples. One thing not commonly taught in the States (for various reasons) is that the Eastern Front was, for the vast majority of the war, where the majority of the European conflict took place. The resources and manpower utilized by Germany and its allies against the USSR was simply massive compared to the amounts directed against the US and Great Britain (and allies) in Normandy and France. In any case the Soviets had already gained a decisive tactical and strategic advantage by 1944, and Germany's fortunes were for the most part already sealed.

You can find numerous books published about the Eastern Front, but here are some to get you started. Relatively basic but like I said you could find more detailed literature pretty easily.

Carruthers, Bob. Winter Warfare on the Russian Front.

Clark, Alan. Barbarossa: The Russian-German Conflict, 1941-45. New-York: W. Morrow, 1965.

Not-so_pro

For France, although we suffered a stunning defeat in 1940, many frenchmen joined General de Gaulle in pursuing the fight.

In 1942, during the military campaign in North Africa, the FFL, Forces Française Libres (Free French Forces) fought alongside the forces of Great Britain and the Commonwealth.

During this campaign, the German forces initially had the upper hand. In June 1942, at the battle of Bir-Hakeihm, the FFL, mostly composed of the French Foreign Legion, fought the German Afrika Korps under the commandment of Rommel. Although outnumbered 10 to 1 and ultimately losing the over 2 week long battle, the FFL inflicted severe casulties and damage to the German forces, giving time for the British Army to regroup and prepare their defenses at El-Alamein.

In France, many see Bir-Hakeim as a turning point for the French forces. It represents the first great strategic victory for the French Army since the start of the war. If you ever visit Paris and travel to the Eiffel Tower, you may notice that the station on the RER C line is named after this battle.

EyeStache

For Canada, the battles that really stand out in public memory are Dieppe and Juno Beach, with Hong Kong, Caen, The Scheldt, Ortona, and the Liri Valley being less popular. The only real overlap between American and Canadian experiences, in popular memory at least, is at Normandy, and even then it's tinged with the rhetoric that since the Canadians made it further inland at Juno than any other Allied landing force did at their respective beaches, that we were the superior fighting force during Overlord.