5 Turning Points of the Second World War You May Not Have Studied

In autumn 1941, Germany seemed unstoppable. Operation Barbarossa had carried German forces deep into the Soviet Union, and the Wehrmacht had captured vast territories and enormous numbers of prisoners.

Moscow seemed next.

The German offensive, however, ran into something its planners had badly underestimated: the sheer depth of Soviet resistance. As German forces approached the capital, autumn rains turned roads into mud. Then came the Russian winter. By December, exhausted German troops were facing a Soviet counteroffensive.

Moscow mattered not simply because the Germans failed to capture the Soviet capital. The battle shattered the expectation that the Soviet Union could be defeated in a short campaign. The German Army had been forced into a war of attrition for which Germany was poorly positioned. The U.S. Army's historical studies describe the 1941–42 campaign as a crucial phase leading into the German summer offensive of 1942 and ultimately the battle for Stalingrad. The Blitzkrieg had not exactly disappeared—but its promise of a quick victory in the East had.

Six months after Pearl Harbor, Japan still seemed to hold the advantage across the Pacific. Its forces had expanded rapidly through Southeast Asia and the western Pacific.

Then came Midway.

Fought from 4–7 June 1942, the battle was an extraordinary reversal. American naval intelligence had managed to anticipate Japanese intentions, allowing US carriers to strike at a Japanese force expecting to surprise the Americans.

The result was devastating for Japan. Four Japanese fleet carriers were lost, along with many experienced aircrew. The US Army Center of Military History describes Midway as an important turning point in the Pacific because it stopped the Japanese advance and shifted the strategic initiative toward the Allies.

What makes Midway especially significant is that Japan could still fight for years. Its defeat was not immediate. But the balance had changed. Japan would increasingly respond to Allied moves rather than dictate the direction of the war.

The war in North Africa can sometimes seem like a distant sideshow compared with Stalingrad or Normandy. Strategically, however, it mattered enormously.

In October 1942, British Eighth Army forces under Bernard Montgomery launched their offensive at El Alamein in Egypt. The battle stopped the Axis advance towards Egypt and the Suez Canal.

Then, barely two weeks later, American and British forces landed in French North Africa in Operation Torch.

These were not isolated events. Together, they created a dangerous strategic squeeze for Axis forces in Tunisia. The US Army's official history notes that Torch was intended not only to establish a base in North Africa but also to assist British forces, protect the Suez route and prepare the way for further Allied operations against Europe.

The significance went beyond territory. American ground forces were now entering the European war in substantial numbers, while Germany was increasingly being forced to fight on several fronts.

North Africa became the launching pad for the invasion of Sicily and the campaign in Italy.

If Midway stopped Japanese expansion, Guadalcanal demonstrated that the Americans could begin taking territory back.

On 7 August 1942, US Marines landed on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. Their immediate objective was an unfinished Japanese airfield—soon renamed Henderson Field.

What followed was a brutal six-month campaign involving land fighting, air attacks and repeated naval battles. Neither side could easily control the waters around the island. Japanese attempts to reinforce their troops repeatedly collided with American naval and air forces.

The US Army's historical account notes that six major naval engagements were fought around Guadalcanal, while air battles continued almost daily. The island was finally secured in February 1943.

Guadalcanal mattered because it transformed the Pacific war from Japanese expansion into an Allied offensive. From there, American forces would develop the strategy of advancing through the Pacific while bypassing some heavily defended Japanese positions.

The Japanese military was no longer choosing the battlefield.

Stalingrad is often remembered as the decisive catastrophe for Hitler's armies in the Soviet Union. But the Battle of Kursk, fought in July and August 1943, was another critical step in making German defeat increasingly likely.

Germany attempted to regain the initiative by attacking a large Soviet salient around Kursk. The Soviets, however, had prepared extensive defensive positions, minefields and anti-tank obstacles.

The German attack failed to produce the breakthrough Hitler wanted. Soviet forces subsequently went on the offensive, beginning a sequence of advances that would eventually carry the Red Army towards Berlin.

Kursk therefore represented more than another German defeat. It marked the diminishing ability of Germany to mount large-scale strategic offensives in the East. The initiative increasingly belonged to the Soviet Union.

By 1944, the Red Army was advancing westward, while the Western Allies were preparing for Normandy. The war was becoming a matter not of whether Germany could win, but of how and when it would lose.

Looking back, it is tempting to identify one battle as the turning point of the Second World War. But the reality was more complicated.

Moscow showed that Germany could not quickly destroy the Soviet Union. Midway crippled Japan's carrier strength and halted its expansion. El Alamein and Torch transformed the strategic situation in North Africa. Guadalcanal began the long Allied counteroffensive in the Pacific. Kursk demonstrated that Germany was losing its ability to dictate the war in the East.

None ended the war by itself. Together, however, they changed its direction.

That may be the most important lesson of military history: turning points are not always dramatic moments when victory suddenly changes hands. Sometimes they are the point at which an army's options begin to disappear—and its enemy's begin to multiply.

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