World War II: Battles Won & Lost

The second world war involved conflict on an unprecedented scale. Its battles set new marks for the sheer size of forces deployed and for the power of their weapons. In this episode we study the first battle at sea, in which enemy ships never sighted each other and the largest army ever to march when Germany launched its invasion of the Soviet Union.

A war that reached every continent and touched every sort of terrain demanded a wide variety of strategies and tactics. This episode examines battles fought at sea, and in the jungle, in city streets, invasions from the air and tactical advances and retreats on the land.

Battles are almost always about territory, with the objectives of advancing the front line, seizing the port, the city, the oil field and more. The fate of nations in the second world war rose and fell on battles that took territory. Singapore, Monte Casino, and even more on battles that failed to capture their objectives. In the skies over Britain or before the walls of Stalingrad.

Every war sees new tactics, some inspired, some desperate that try to influence the course of battles. In the second world war campaigns were waged against nonmilitary targets in an attempt to destroy morale. Suicide missions were launched when traditional weapons failed and forces withdrew rather than fire on their fellow countrymen. These are the battles that rewrote the rules of engagement.

A world war is a patchwork of actions: Land, sea, air, massive or small scale. And these stories of these actions are just as varied. Here are battles decided by amphibious forces, climate, geography and the problems of supply.

Through history, armies marched to face each other on favored ground and clashed to decide a campaign, a war, an empire. With the 20th century that changed. The battles won and lost of the second world war happened anywhere and everywhere, in freezing temperatures, arid deserts, and mercilessly humid jungles. These are battles in which the enemy soldier had to be overcome.

Some words transcend their origins as humble place names. Even as the names given to battles won and lost. They are carved into history as turning points which influenced the course of the war, the fate of nations, the make-up of our world. These words are indestructible: El Alamein, Okinawa, and Pearl Harbor.