clackers

In fact, Astralis, at the Yalta conference Roosevelt and Churchill made Stalin commit to attacking Japan within 90 days of a German surrender ... I don't know about a sea invasion, though!

reve893

The most significant battle in my opinion was the Battle of Normandy. This destroyed all hopes for Germany to win the War. The allies strategic bombing was not really disrupting the production of war materials. During this Germany was producing more tanks than ever, not to say tanks were better than the Allies. Germany had five/six panzer divisions and many more infantry divisions in France. The idea was that they defeated the Allies armies and than use those forces to launch an offensive against the soviet union, and stabilize the front. The Americans and British would not be able to gather enough resources for another attempt for a number of years, or would have to pursue a diplomatic solution. They were not having any success in Italy, and Stalin told Roosevelt and Churchill that a second western front was necessary, for the war to be won. It would still be pretty far for Germany to win the war, but nonetheless a different outcome would have occured. For this reasons Normandy was the most important and significant battle.

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Sinister

Many battles have been decicive , such as Stalingrad or Pearl Harbour , I somewhat personaly find it that Kursk was the most fundamental specialy on eastern front as it destroyed cruicial german reserves that they could not recover , it was also the biggest tank battle in history.

nizawa

I would like to put the attack of Pearl Harbour as the most decisive battle
of WW2 as this enable USA to bring the full war potential to bear on Allied
side to win the war.

cuba

If a battle isn't defined as mutual then i would say Pearl Harbour as well.

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Ray

The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki!

Ended a long drawn out war!

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JAD_333

I suppose you could call that a battle.

But 'decisive' would depend on how one defines the word. The bombing brought a swift end of a war that was already lost. Is that decisive or would that label go to the Battle of Midway or Philippines Sea? The first turned the tide and the second wiped out what navy the Japanese had left.

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Ray

Well, technically the bombing could not be called a battle and you are right about that.

Ray

As per some these are supposed to be decisive:

Polish Campaign 1939
Dunkirk 1940
Britain (Battle of) 1940
Moscow 1941
Pearl Harbor 1941
Singapore 1942
Midway 1942
Guadalcanal 1942
Stalingrad 1942
El Alamein II 1942
Kursk 1943
Normandy 1944
Ardennes 1944
Okinawa 1945
Decisive Battles

BruceLee94

I would say the battle of Britain because without no D-day which was launched from British soil, there would be no occupation of France, and later Germany from the west. Britain remained the only unoccupied allied place is Europe. lots of vital British soldiers would be captured still in Britain, also, How would Canadians, Americans etc go without the British coast? They could have landed in German occupied western France, with heavy defenses, or spain, and risked turning to war with neutral Spain. The only hope would have been from Russia, who i don't think could have managed without the British support of Spitfires etc.

I think US would have to enter Europe by going the other way round through Russia, and onto the Eastern front. And that would have been an altogether different war, it's very hard to say what would have happened.

glyn

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nizawa

Quite agree, without battle of Britain, with a Nazi occupied Britain,not sure whether US would have entered the war. The only way to win the war is to have US on your side.

cesm

Hard to say. Can't select a special one. On the top of my list are :
- battle of Britain (how could USA fight Germany and help Russia if the English Empire surrenders ?) and the first round : the air-battle of France (853 german planes destroyed by RAF+FAF, some pilots killed, tired german units which have to rest and reinforce before the second round)
- Pearl Harbor (with or without the full help of the USA, it's a very different war)
- battle of Atlantic and the Enigma challenge (like battle of Britain, if Germany wins it's a disaster for the link between the USA and the others, and for the continuation of the war against Germany)
- some decisive battles of the russian front : Moscow, Stalingrad and maybe Kursk. If USSR collapses, good luck on the West front.

"Franco-German frontier 1939", no comment...

rm444

It'd have to be 'Midway' in the PTO and the Ardennes<Bulge> in the ETO.
Seconds would be Pearl Harbor<PTO>, they missed our carriers.And Stalingrad.
I hate to say it, but if the Nazis had been able to hang on, we wouldn't have been racing the Reds to Berlin.Oh, well.

McFire

I'll have to go with Midway in the Pacific. Japan never recovered from the pilot and carrier losses.
Kursk and Stalingrad on the Eastern Front. Germany could never recover and the Soviets didn't care about losses in men or materials, just overwhelm the Germans.
Battle of Britain. Hitler never finished taking out Britain, which then set the stage for D-Day.

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McFire