World War II Battles Trivia Word Search

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This Gilbert Islands atoll was taken by US Army troops in November 1943 alongside the much costlier fight at Tarawa.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

This Libyan port changed hands repeatedly in 1941-42, with its Allied garrison enduring a famous eight-month siege.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This strategic Norman city took over a month of brutal fighting for the British and Canadians to secure after D-Day.

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

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

This remote Aleutian island was the site of the only WWII land battle fought on incorporated US soil besides Hawaii.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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