World War Won Trivia Quiz

Answer: Land Battles

In the summer of 1916, the Allies sought to relieve the pressure on the French army, which was engaged in fierce fighting at Verdun. The British and French high commands therefore agreed to launch a joint offensive along the River Somme in the Picardy region of northern France, where the trench lines had stabilised. The aim was to break through the German defences and force a strategic shift on the Western Front.

The British forces were led by General Sir Douglas Haig, while the French contingent was commanded by General Ferdinand Foch. Opposing them was the German Second Army under General Fritz von Below.

The battle began on 1 July 1916 with the largest artillery bombardment in British history, followed by a massive infantry advance. However, the German defences remained largely intact, resulting in catastrophic losses for the Allies on the first day, particularly for the British, who lost over 19,000 men. Despite this, the battle dragged on for more than four months.

By the time it ended in November 1916, the Allies had advanced only about 10 kilometres. Nevertheless, the battle had severely depleted German manpower and forced a shift in their defensive strategy. The Somme became a symbol of the futility and scale of trench warfare, but it also marked a turning point in terms of British military development and the increasing use of new technologies, such as tanks.

While the battle ended in a tactical stalemate, it was a strategic success for the Allies due to the attrition inflicted on the German forces.

Answer: Land Battles

Following his failure to capture Moscow in 1941, Hitler launched Operation Blue in the summer of 1942. The aim was to seize the Soviet oil fields in the Caucasus and secure the vital transport route of the Volga River. The city of Stalingrad (now Volgograd), located in southern Russia, became a symbolic target due to its name and strategic location. Its capture was meant to deal a psychological blow to the Soviets and protect the German flank in the south.

The German 6th Army, led by General Friedrich Paulus and supported by the 4th Panzer Army, led the assault. The city was defended by Soviet forces of the 62nd Army under the command of General Vasily Chuikov, who were part of the wider Soviet command led by Marshal Georgy Zhukov and General Aleksandr Vasilevsky.

The battle began in August 1942 with a ferocious German bombing campaign that turned the city into rubble - ironically aiding the Soviet defence, which fought from cellars, factories and ruins in brutal house-to-house combat. By November, the Germans had captured most of the city, but Soviet resistance continued.

On 19 November, the Soviets launched Operation Uranus, a massive double envelopment that encircled Paulus's forces. Hitler refused to allow a breakout, and the Luftwaffe's airlift failed to supply the besieged army. After months of siege, starvation and intense fighting, Paulus surrendered on 2 February 1943 - the first time a German field marshal had ever been captured alive. This Soviet victory marked a turning point on the Eastern Front.

Answer: Land Battles

By mid-1942, the Axis forces under the command of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (known as the "Desert Fox") had advanced deep into Egypt, threatening both the Suez Canal and the British oil supply routes from the Middle East. The battered and retreating British Eighth Army regrouped at El Alamein, a small railway stop around 100 kilometres west of Alexandria. The narrow terrain between the Mediterranean Sea and the Qattara Depression made a flanking manoeuvre impossible there.

Following the Axis forces' failure at the First Battle of El Alamein in July 1942, the newly appointed British commander, Lieutenant-General Bernard Montgomery, prepared a counteroffensive. With superior numbers, intelligence from intercepted German communications and secure supply lines, the British planned a methodical breakthrough of Rommel's minefields and defences.

The Second Battle of El Alamein began on 23 October 1942 with a massive artillery bombardment and a carefully coordinated infantry and tank assault. The fighting was intense, but the Axis forces, stretched thin and suffering from supply shortages, were gradually pushed back. After several days of intense combat, Rommel ordered a retreat on 4 November, despite Hitler's orders to hold the line.

This British victory marked a turning point in the North African campaign, leading to the Axis retreat and eventual expulsion from the continent.

Answer: Land Battles

By the summer of 1918, Germany's Spring Offensive had failed to secure a breakthrough on the Western Front, and its forces were exhausted and overstretched. The Allies, now bolstered by fresh American troops and reorganized under a unified command led by French General Ferdinand Foch, prepared to launch a counteroffensive. The city of Amiens, located in northern France, just east of the Somme River, became the focal point for this new push.

The Allied assault was led by the British Fourth Army under General Sir Henry Rawlinson, with key support from the Australian Corps (under General John Monash), the Canadian Corps (under General Arthur Currie), and elements of the French First Army. Opposing them were German forces under General Georg von der Marwitz, part of the German 2nd Army.

The attack began on 8 August 1918 with no preliminary bombardment, achieving near-total surprise. The Allies employed a combined arms strategy: infantry advanced behind a creeping artillery barrage while nearly 500 tanks broke through enemy lines, supported by coordinated aerial reconnaissance and ground-attack aircraft.

The Germans were thrown into confusion. Thousands surrendered, and by the end of the first day, the Allies had advanced up to 11 kilometers - one of the deepest gains in a single day since trench warfare began. German General Erich Ludendorff famously called August 8 "the black day of the German Army". The Allied victory marked the beginning of the "Hundred Days Offensive" that eventually led to Germany's defeat and the Armistice.

Answer: Naval Battles

During the Guadalcanal Campaign in the Solomon Islands in early October 1942, the Allies aimed to disrupt the Japanese efforts to reinforce their positions on the island. U.S. naval intelligence had detected Japanese ships carrying troops and supplies heading towards the island. A task force under the command of Rear Admiral Norman Scott was dispatched to patrol the waters north of the island near Cape Esperance, the north-west tip of Guadalcanal, in order to intercept the Japanese ships.

On the night of 11-12 October, the American fleet unexpectedly encountered a Japanese force under the command of Rear Admiral Aritomo Gotô, which was escorting a group of reinforcements. Caught by surprise and sailing in column formation, the Japanese were at a disadvantage when the Americans opened fire with radar-directed guns.

Despite some confusion on the American side, the Japanese lost the cruiser "Furutaka" and destroyer "Fubuki", while "Aoba" was badly damaged. The Americans lost the destroyer "USS Duncan", but otherwise held the field. This battle provided a much-needed morale boost for the US Navy after a series of defeats at night in the Solomon Islands. It was a tactical Allied victory, though the broader struggle for Guadalcanal would continue for several more months.

Answer: Naval Battles

At the very outset of World War II, the German pocket battleship "Admiral Graf Spee", under Captain Hans Langsdorff, was dispatched to the South Atlantic to attack Allied merchant ships. Between September and December 1939, the ship sank nine British vessels while avoiding direct engagement with enemy warships. Concerned by these losses, the British formed hunting groups to track the raider.

One such group, consisting of the heavy cruiser "HMS Exeter" and the light cruisers "HMS Ajax" and "HMS Achilles" under the command of Commodore Henry Harwood, predicted that the "Graf Spee" would target merchant shipping near the River Plate estuary, off the coasts of Uruguay and Argentina.

On 13 December 1939, Harwood's force encountered the "Graf Spee" near the river mouth. Despite being outgunned, the British cruisers split up and attacked the German ship from different angles. "HMS Exeter" was badly damaged, but the British inflicted critical hits on "Graf Spee", damaging her fuel system.

Langsdorff withdrew into the neutral port of Montevideo in Uruguay, hoping to gain time to make repairs. However, diplomatic pressure and misinformation led him to believe that superior British forces were waiting outside the harbour. Unwilling to risk his crew and with no escape, Langsdorff scuttled the "Graf Spee" on 17 December. The scuttling removed a significant threat to Allied shipping and marked the first major naval engagement of World War II.

Answer: Naval Battles

In the early months of World War I, German naval forces sought to disrupt British maritime supremacy worldwide. On 1 November 1914, Vice Admiral Maximilian von Spee's East Asia Squadron sank two British cruisers at the Battle of Coronel off the coast of Chile - marking the Royal Navy's first defeat in a century. In response, the British dispatched a powerful squadron to intercept von Spee's force before it could reach the South Atlantic.

This fleet, commanded by Vice Admiral Doveton Sturdee, comprised two modern battlecruisers, "HMS Invincible" and "HMS Inflexible", as well as several cruisers. They arrived at Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands, off the south-eastern tip of South America, just days before the Germans arrived on 8 December 1914.

Unaware of the British reinforcements, von Spee approached to raid the port. When British lookouts spotted his ships, Sturdee sent out his faster battlecruisers. The Germans attempted to flee, but their older, slower vessels were caught and destroyed one by one in a running battle across the South Atlantic.

Four German cruisers - including von Spee's flagship, the "SMS Scharnhorst" - were sunk. Only a few German sailors survived, and von Spee and both his sons were killed in action. The German threat in the South Atlantic was eliminated and British naval dominance in the region was restored.

Answer: Naval Battles

By early 1941, the war in the Mediterranean had intensified. Having joined the Axis in 1940, Italy sought to challenge British naval dominance and disrupt Allied convoys supplying Greece and North Africa. The Italian Regia Marina, under the command of Admiral Angelo Iachino, planned an offensive into the eastern Mediterranean to intercept Allied shipping near Cape Matapan on the southernmost tip of the Peloponnese in Greece.

However, unknown to the Italians, British intelligence - thanks to decrypted Enigma communications (Ultra) - was fully aware of the plan. Admiral Andrew Cunningham, commander of the Royal Navy's Mediterranean Fleet, organised a counterattack involving battleships, cruisers, destroyers and aircraft from the aircraft carrier "HMS Formidable".

From 27 to 29 March 1941, British reconnaissance aircraft tracked the Italian fleet. Aerial torpedo attacks disabled the heavy cruiser "Pola". That night, Cunningham made the risky decision to close in with three battleships - "HMS Warspite", "Valiant" and "Barham" - to execute a rare night-time engagement using radar, a technology lacking in the Italian fleet.

In a short and devastating encounter, the British sank three heavy cruisers ("Zara", "Fiume" and "Pola") and two destroyers with minimal losses. The battle effectively eliminated Italy's heavy surface fleet as a threat and secured Allied naval supremacy in the eastern Mediterranean.

Answer: Aerial Battles

After the fall of France in June 1940, Hitler turned his attention to Britain. The planned invasion, Operation Sea Lion, could only proceed if the German Air Force, the Luftwaffe, won air superiority over southern England. Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring was tasked with this mission and believed that a short, intense air campaign could destroy the Royal Air Force (RAF) and force Britain to negotiate peace.

Although the RAF had fewer aircraft and pilots than the Luftwaffe, they had the advantage of radar, home territory and effective command and control systems under the leadership of Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding. The battle began in earnest in July 1940 with attacks by the Luftwaffe on shipping and radar stations. By August, the Germans had escalated to launching full-scale raids on RAF airfields and infrastructure in south-east England.

Despite sustaining heavy losses, the RAF held firm. A key moment came in September when the Luftwaffe shifted its focus to bombing London, an event that would become known as "The Blitz". This gave the RAF an opportunity to recover and regroup before striking back. The final phase occurred on September 15, now commemorated as "Battle of Britain Day", when the RAF decisively repelled massive Luftwaffe formations. Hitler postponed and eventually cancelled the invasion.

The Battle of Britain was Germany's first major defeat and proved that air power alone could halt an invasion. It preserved British independence and morale, and set the stage for future Allied counteroffensives.

Answer: Aerial Battles

In late 1943, the Allies sought to neutralise the major Japanese stronghold at Rabaul, located on the northeastern tip of New Britain in the Southwest Pacific. Rather than launching a costly invasion, Allied planners chose to eliminate the threat posed by Rabaul from the air. The heavily fortified base housed a large Japanese fleet and air force, posing a serious threat to Allied operations in the Solomon Islands and New Guinea.

The offensive began in early November 1943 with coordinated air raids by the U.S. Navy's fast carrier task forces and the U.S. Fifth Air Force, supported by the Royal Australian Air Force. The aerial onslaught targeted Japanese shipping, airfields and coastal defences in and around Rabaul, catching many Japanese aircraft on the ground and overwhelming their defences.

The battle reached its climax on 5 and 11 November, when mass air raids by US carrier-based dive and torpedo bombers hit the harbour. This rendered several cruisers unfit for service and effectively drove the Japanese fleet from the base. By mid-November, Rabaul's air power had been destroyed and the base was cut off from reinforcement or resupply.

Though Japanese ground forces remained entrenched, the air superiority gained by the Allies ensured that Rabaul could no longer function as a threat - it was bypassed and left to wither.

Answer: Aerial Battles

In the opening months of World War II, the British Royal Air Force sought to challenge German naval operations along the North Sea coast. On 18 December 1939, 24 Vickers Wellington bombers from the RAF's Bomber Command flew a daylight raid targeting German warships anchored near Wilhelmshaven, just south of the Heligoland Bight off the north-western coast of Germany.

Overseen by Air Vice-Marshal Patrick Playfair, the raid was part of a broader RAF effort to disrupt German naval activity and gather intelligence. Anticipating little resistance, the bombers flew in formation over the North Sea, but the Luftwaffe had anticipated the attack.

German fighter units, led by Generalleutnant Erhard Milch and Major Günther Lützow, scrambled dozens of Messerschmitt Bf 109 and Bf 110 fighters from nearby airfields. Fierce combat broke out over the water, and nearly half of the British bombers were shot down.

Despite the heavy losses, the British gained valuable insight into the vulnerabilities of daylight bombing and the effectiveness of German fighter coordination. In Germany, the Luftwaffe's high command was taken aback by the effectiveness of the British operation and began to reconsider their assumptions about British air power.

Answer: Aerial Battles

From March to July 1943, the Royal Air Force's Bomber Command, led by Air Chief Marshal Arthur Harris, conducted a sustained strategic bombing campaign against the Ruhr Valley in western Germany - the heart of Nazi industrial production. The area was home to vital armaments factories, steelworks and chemical plants, and was heavily defended by anti-aircraft guns, searchlights and night fighters.

This campaign formed part of a broader Allied shift towards destroying Germany's industrial capacity. Flying mainly at night, the RAF deployed large bomber formations, which were increasingly supported by radar jamming and deception tactics. The iconic Avro Lancaster heavy bombers formed the backbone of the offensive.

A notable highlight of the campaign was Operation Chastise on 16-17 May, in which the famous "Dambusters" of 617 Squadron used specially designed bouncing bombs to breach the Möhne and Eder dams. This flooded the Ruhr Valley, disrupting hydroelectric power and industrial water supplies.

Despite suffering heavy losses - over 500 bombers were lost during the campaign - the raids caused severe damage to the production of steel, coal and chemicals, forcing Germany to divert substantial resources to home defence.