World War II Battles Trivia Word Search

Soviet forces fought a costly delaying action at this city in 1941, buying crucial time to organize Moscow's defense.

The iconic flag-raising photo on Mount Suribachi came from this brutal volcanic-island battle of February-March 1945.

The 1942 surrender of US and Filipino forces on this Philippine peninsula was followed by a notorious forced march.

Germany's last major western offensive punched a large dent in Allied lines through the Ardennes in Dec. 1944: the '_ _ _ _ _.'

In 1940, the Luftwaffe fought the RAF for air superiority over the UK, suffering the Nazis' first major defeat.

Surrounded US paratroopers famously replied 'Nuts!' to a German surrender demand at this Belgian town in December 1944.

Fought 1942-43 on the Volga River, this battle's namesake city was renamed '_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _' in 1961.

Rommel's 1942 victory in this North African desert battle led directly to the fall of Tobruk soon after.

US troops fought the longest single battle in their army's history in this dense German forest from late 1944 into 1945.

Japanese forces repeatedly attacked this US-held airfield on Guadalcanal in 1942, but it never fell.

Soviet troops captured this Austrian capital in April 1945 after two weeks of fighting through its historic streets.

US pilots inflicted such lopsided losses on Japanese aviators over these Pacific islands in June 1944 it was nicknamed the 'Turkey Shoot.'

Fierce house-to-house fighting in early 1945 devastated this Philippine capital during its liberation from Japanese forces.

Allied troops made a risky amphibious landing behind German lines at this Italian coastal town in January 1944.

The largest amphibious assault of the Pacific War, in spring 1945, featured massed kamikaze attacks against the Allied fleet.

In 1942 New Guinea, Australian forces inflicted Japan's first outright land defeat of the war near this bay.

Fought alongside Imphal in 1944, this battle for a small hill town is often called the 'Stalingrad of the East.'

Australian troops halted a Japanese advance on Port Moresby along this rugged New Guinea jungle track in 1942.

Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of this Italian island in July 1943, led to Mussolini's fall from power.

A historic hilltop abbey in Italy was destroyed by Allied bombing during months of fighting here in early 1944.

German panzers broke through weak French defenses at this Ardennes town in May 1940, opening the road to Paris.

A grinding Canadian-led 1944 campaign along this Belgian-Dutch estuary was needed to open the vital port of Antwerp.

On December 7, 1941, Japan launched a surprise carrier attack on this Hawaiian naval base: '_ _ _ _ _ Harbor.'

Allied troops captured an intact Rhine bridge here in March 1945, allowing a rare quick crossing into Germany.

The largest tank battle in history was fought here in July 1943, ending Germany's last major eastern offensive.

The Royal Navy inflicted a crushing defeat on the Italian fleet off this Greek cape in March 1941.

A brutal 1944-45 siege of this Hungarian capital was so destructive it earned the grim nickname 'Stalingrad of the Waffen-SS.'

US forces suffered their first major defeat against German troops at this Tunisian mountain pass in February 1943.

In spring 1945, Allied forces encircled and trapped an entire German army group in this industrial river valley.

Churchill called Britain's 1942 surrender of this fortified island colony the worst disaster in British military history.

The last major battle in Europe raged around this Czech capital in early May 1945, even after Germany's formal surrender.

US forces recaptured this Pacific island, an American territory since 1898, from Japan in the summer of 1944.

Soviet forces stormed the German capital in April-May 1945, ending the war in Europe within days of its fall.

Montgomery's 1942 victory over Rommel at '_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _' turned the tide of the North African campaign.

German forces encircled and captured over 600,000 Soviet troops near this Ukrainian capital in September 1941.

Allied forces eliminated a stubborn German-held pocket around this Alsatian city in January-February 1945.

Germany's costly 1941 airborne invasion of this Greek island convinced Hitler never to attempt a mass paratrooper assault again.

This Ukrainian city changed hands four separate times in brutal fighting between 1941 and 1943.

The US Navy's decisive June 1942 carrier victory near this Pacific atoll sank four Japanese carriers in one battle.

This nearly 900-day siege of a Soviet city, 1941-44, was one of the longest and deadliest in modern history.

A Soviet counteroffensive in December 1941 saved this capital city and dealt Nazi Germany its first major land defeat.

Japan's 1944 invasion of India was decisively repelled at this Indian city near the Burmese border.

Capturing this Mariana Island in mid-1944 put mainland Japan within range of American B-29 bombers for the first time.

Soviet defenders held out for over a week at a fortress citadel on the Bug River during the opening days of Operation Barbarossa in 1941.

A grueling Soviet defense of this Black Sea peninsula's naval base held out for over 250 days against Axis siege in 1941-42.

Japan invaded this British colony on the same day as Pearl Harbor, with the garrison surrendering on Christmas Day 1941.

Romanian and German forces besieged this Black Sea port for over two months before Soviet defenders withdrew in October 1941.

This Norwegian port town saw naval and land battles in 1940 as the Allies briefly held off a German invasion.

One of the war's bloodiest ratio-of-casualties battles was fought over this small Palau island in late 1944.

In May 1941, the Royal Navy hunted down and sank Germany's most powerful battleship after it sank HMS Hood.

Allied forces landed across five beaches in this French region on D-Day, June 6, 1944.

In August 1944, Allied forces trapped and destroyed much of two German armies in a pocket near this Norman town.

US forces captured this Marshall Islands atoll in early 1944, using overwhelming firepower to shorten the assault.

A devastating German bombing raid on this Dutch port city in May 1940 forced the Netherlands to surrender.

In November 1940, British carrier planes crippled the Italian fleet at anchor in this southern Italian naval base.

Fought in May 1942, this was history's first naval battle in which opposing ships never sighted one another.

Allied forces recaptured this historic Burmese royal city from Japanese occupation in early 1945.

Montgomery's Eighth Army broke through a fortified French-built defensive line in Tunisia here in March 1943.

Captured in October 1944, this was the first major German city to fall into Allied hands during the war.

A grueling 1942-43 campaign to retake this New Guinea coastal area was Australia's and America's first Pacific land offensive.

A costly November 1943 US Marine assault on this fortified Gilbert Islands atoll shocked the American public.

The Polish capital held out for nearly three weeks against German bombardment and siege in September 1939.

Over 300,000 Allied troops were evacuated from this French port's beaches by a makeshift fleet in May-June 1940.

A massive June 1944 Soviet offensive named for a Napoleonic-era general destroyed Germany's Army Group Center in Belarus.

The Allied airborne assault on this Dutch bridge in September 1944 became known as 'a bridge too far.'

Allied cruisers suffered a disastrous nighttime defeat near this small island off Guadalcanal in August 1942.

Allied forces met fierce German resistance landing on the Italian mainland near this port in September 1943.

A small US Marine garrison on this remote Pacific atoll resisted a Japanese invasion for over two weeks in December 1941.