Lesser known battles or operations that changed the course of a war

[FlyingR]

We all know about D-Day, Stalingrad and Midway, but what about battles, operations or any event that had a big impact in any war that not a lot of people know? I am quite keen on learning new ones *cough* [MENTION=147]VonMudra[/MENTION] *cough*

But yeah, this one many of you might know which is Operation Fortitude. An operation based on deception with the sole purpose of confusing the Germans as to where the attacks could come from all around Europe. This operation was done to deceive many possible attacks but the most famous one was in the south of England, with the intention of making the Germans think that an attack/landing in Pas-de-Calais was to be made (which in reality it would be in the Normandy beaches). The Allied forces used fictional armies, rubber and dummy tanks, planes, landing crafts etc, double agents, fake information and the such.

The Germans took the bait and Rommel was obliged to fortify intensely the area of PdC. Even after D-day, the Germans still thought that an attack in PdC would be done.

The impact of this operation was quite successful due to the victory of the landings. I believe that without all this deception, preparation and trickery, D-day would've been less successful than it was or even a complete failure.

 

[th_battleaxe]

Operation Mincemeat

An idea by none other than Commander Ian Fleming. They used a fresh corpse dressed as an Allied Intelligence officer and dropped it off the Spanish coast per submarine. On the body were included documents detailing the plans for an Allied invasion of Greece. The top German spy in the area got wind of this and managed to send everything to his superiors. The plan worked and many troops were sent to Greece to halt the impending invasion.

Operation Husky went a lot smoother thanks to this elaborate scheme.

 

[Aniallator]

Everyone knows the invasion of Sicily, but a lesser known event was the evacuation of Sicily conducted by German and Italian forces. It was more or less an Axis version of Dunkirk, and in a week 50,000 German and 75,000 Italian troops were evacuated across the straight of Messina to mainland Italy. These troops would go on to combat Allied forces in mainland Italy throughout the Italian campaign. On a whole, I think the Italian campaign is severely under appreciated.

@th_battleaxe wasn't it was Sardinia that German troops were diverted to?

 

[Killen]

Everyone knows the invasion of Sicily, but a lesser known event was the evacuation of Sicily conducted by German and Italian forces. It was more or less an Axis version of Dunkirk, and in a week 50,000 German and 75,000 Italian troops were evacuated across the straight of Messina to mainland Italy. These troops would go on to combat Allied forces in mainland Italy throughout the Italian campaign. On a whole, I think the Italian campaign is severely under appreciated.

@th_battleaxe wasn't it was Sardinia that German troops were diverted to?

Even i know more things about american campaign than the italian one

 

[th_battleaxe]

[MENTION=2108]Aniallator[/MENTION]: It would seem that, although there was indeed some inuendo towards an invasion of Sardinia, the Germans must have thought it more likely that the invasion was going to take place in Greece. Or else they wouldn't have sent three Panzerdivisionen and Rommel to Greece to defend.