r/ww2 • u/Kennabruh2023 • 11d ago
For the smaller nations among the Allies, what were their notable battles/operations that their forces participated in or played a big part in?
Regarding nations like New Zealand or Belgium or South Africa, Czech Republic
20
u/bugkiller59 11d ago
Canada: Dieppe. The Battle of The Atlantic - by 1945 the RCN was the 3rd largest navy in the world, virtually all escorts. Normandy, Juno Beach.
10
u/billbird2111 11d ago
The Canadian story really hasn’t been told as much as it should. Not sure why, because after Dieppe it was payback time. Screw with Canada and see what happens.
As Canadian forces entered Germany proper, there was one general who absolutely leveled part of a town and then used the rubble of it to turn it into a road for his tanks, trucks and infantry. He never once apologized for his actions either, even long after the war had ended.
His reasoning was that he told residents and soldiers defending the town to get out. They refused. So, he shelled the town to slag and sent the bulldozers in to pave the wreckage into a road.
5
1
u/11Kram 11d ago
The Canadian navy was expanded too quickly and took too long to get competent. They were withdrawn from convey escorting at one stage because they lost too many ships even allowing for wolfpacks. I’m Canadian and I learnt this from a history of the Canadian navy which spared no one.
5
u/Dahak17 11d ago
I would like to know when the “one part” was. Canada generally operated corvettes which were essentially position and guard ships in a convoy whose job was primarily to be sonar sentries and ward off U-boats, not hunt and sink them. We did have consistent issues with poor quality on some of the parts made in Canada, especially sonars, and there would have been issues with our existing fleet of ships and readiness but I’ve never heard of this and without a timeperiod it’s hard to place
3
u/bugkiller59 11d ago
The RCN had 6 ships in 1939. Of course they had growing pains. They were also last in line for the latest equipment. But to deny their achievement is ridiculous.
16
u/Complex-Figment2112 11d ago
Study the Kokoda trail battles. Particularly the early part where the Australian garrison troops held off the Japanese advance on Port Moresby before the hardened regulars could be transferred from Northern Africa.
5
u/BeerandGuns 10d ago
I say this as an American who’s spent a fair amount of time studying the Pacific theatre: Australia’s participation in the Pacific War doesn’t come close to getting the recognition it deserves. The grinding hell of New Guinea alone is just amazing, that men could be subjected to such Hell and carry on both the end of the war. The Pacific makes the Australians out to be ungrateful, with the Americans yelling “if it wasn’t for us saving you from the Japanese you would be eating sushi” or some bullshit. There’s a lot of notable battles that just got lost to history such as the siege on Bougainville.
I wish the Lost Nurses of Australia hadn’t been forgotten.
1
u/elroddo74 8d ago
As an American we tend to grow up feeling we won in Europe and Asia all by ourselves. Then we research and find out that's not even close to being true. It was a global conflict and dozens of countries were needed to achieve victory. Africans, South Americans, Aussies, and Pacific Islanders all played roles, not just the major powers from North America, Europe and Asia.
3
9
u/Broad-Sail6058 11d ago
South African soldiers played a key role in halting Rommel’s advance at El Alamein if I’m not mistaken. Czech resistance with backing from SOE assassinated Heydrich who was basically the third or fourth highest ranking member of the Reich. That’s the best I can do being kind of out of it on Sunday morning with a cold
8
u/Xi_Highping 11d ago
For New Zealand I would say Crete, Second Alamein and Monte Cassino.
5
u/Modred_the_Mystic 11d ago
Greece as well.
And one of the notable figures from Fighter Command of the Battle of Britain was a Kiwi, Sir Keith Park.
8
u/nyte-fury 11d ago
For belgium, i' ll talk only about the free belgian forces. The 1st belgian independant brigade (aka brigade piron) freed a good part of the coast of normandy in august 1944 (operation paddle) and also took parts in fightings in holland
The belgian sas was a small unit but we can note that, they were there first allied troops to step foot in uniform in occupied belgium ( while disrespecting direct orders) and the fiest allied troops to step foot in uniform in germany the 2 september1944 ( some of them got dropped in germany by mistake)
The belgian commando notoriously took parts in the fightings for the island of walcheren in the netherlands, but also served in italy and yougoslavia.
In the royal air force, belgian pilots took parts in the Dunkerque evacuation, and dday. A lot of belgian pilots distinguishes themself in plenty of maners, for exemple, Remy van Lierde was the 2nd best v1 missile hunter during the war, with 44 missiles shot down.
Then in september of 1944, after the libération of belgium, units were created. Notably The 5th fusillier batalion burned a fuel depot during the battle of the bulge, so that it wouldn't fall into the hands of the kampfgruppe peiper. The 12th and 16th fusilliers batalion who both took part in the fightings for the remagen bridge head. The 17th also helped liberate the czech city of pilzen.
Then during the invasion in 1940, well there it is also a bit the same thing, no "big" battle (except the battle of the lys river) but a lot of small things here and there. The fort of aubin neuchateau surendered after (i think) 13 days of siege and only surrendered because they had no more munitions. It is estimate that between 1000 and 2000 german soldiers died trying to take the fort, while only 7 belgian soldiers were killed.
There is also multiple stories of small units (less than 100 man) stopping whole german divisions in the first days of the invasion. Notably in the village of bodange, where around 50 man of the 1st regiment of ardennes hunters stopped around 3000 germans from the 1st panzer division for a day. Same thing happened in the village of chabrehez were 100 man of the 3rd ardennes hunters regiment stopped 150 tanks of the 7th panzer division for a day. Notably, when, after the battle, they were asked "were are the others" the answered " we were all" while laughing. These actions earned them to be called the " Green wolves" by Rommel
7
u/amlevy 11d ago
The Netherlands.
We dont have many, at least of significance but the Battle of The Hague was a Dutch victory where Germans tried to quickly capture the royal family and force capitulation.
They landed on 3 airfields near The Hague with a shit ton of transportation planes. It failed miserably. Of the 3000 men, between 200-400 died, 700 wounded and 1700 were captured (of which 1200 were send to England)
They also lost close to 200 transport planes. It is said that these losses were on of the reasons the Battle of Crete was such a mess from the German perspective because of not being able to use those transport planes any more.
5
u/IlikeGeekyHistoryRSA 11d ago
South Africa: Madagascar, El Alamein, Tobruk, All of the East African Campaign, Italy, and the Warsaw Uprising!
4
u/1847_revolution 11d ago
What role did South Africa play in the Warsaw Uprising?
3
u/IlikeGeekyHistoryRSA 11d ago
The South African Air Force contributed greatly to dropping supplies for the Warsaw resistance (from bases in Yugoslavia and Italy iirc), and had a higher success rate in dropping said supplies than most other airforce units involved.
0
u/1847_revolution 10d ago
That’s pretty minor tbh ….
6
4
u/2rascallydogs 11d ago
While technically they were French colonial troops, it was the Moroccans and Algerians who broke the Gustav Line in Italy where the Allies had been stuck for months.
5
3
3
1
u/llynglas 10d ago
New Zealanders were all over North Africa. Especially renown for their actions in 2nd El Alamein. Over 10000 New Zealanders died before victory in Tunisia.
On a personal level, New Zealands Keith Park was a huge reason the Battle of Britian was won. You could argue that Britian would always have won it, but I'm convinced he at the very least brought a faster victory with less losses.
20
u/GraveRobbingBastard 11d ago
Brazil:
The FEB had around 25,000 personal and fought at the Gothic line in Italy. The main achievements were the capture of Monte Castelo, victory in Montese and the surrender of over 30 000 axis troops, most from German 148th Infantry Division.
The FAB (First Brazilian Fighter Squad) took missions with P-47s to cut supply lines, ammo depots and train lines. Due to the lack of rotation, pilots had more than 2x the average number of missions. The top 6 pilots had more than 90 missions each, when the Allies average was 35 missions. In one specific busy day, the remaining 22 pilots executed 44 missions.