Getting your questions ready
Getting your questions ready
Beat the crowd
10 questions No timer
99 free WW2 trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
50 free WW2 trivia questions with answers. WW2 trivia lives in two places on BrainPickle. This page is the shorter set; the main quiz is World War 2 trivia, with our deepest question pool on the topic and a source behind every answer.
30 of 99 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01When did World War II officially begin in Europe?
September 1, 1939
September 1, 1939 was the morning German forces crossed into Poland, and the war that began then ran until 2 September 1945.
Q 02Alongside Britain, the Soviet Union and China, which country made up the Allied 'Big Four' of World War II?
United States
The United States joined the other three Big Four powers and 22 smaller or exiled governments in issuing the Declaration by United Nations on 1 January 1942.
Q 03What was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941?
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union, which began on June 22, 1941.
Q 04What event directly led to the United States entering World War II?
The attack on Pearl Harbor
The surprise Japanese raid on the Hawaii naval base prompted the United States to declare war the following day and formally enter the conflict.
Q 05In what region of France did the D-Day landings primarily take place?
Normandy
Normandy's beaches, code-named Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword, were the D-Day landing sites on 6 June 1944, opening the Allied campaign to liberate Western Europe.
Q 06Which German General earned the nickname 'Desert Fox' for his leadership in North Africa?
Erwin Rommel
Erwin Rommel was a German Field Marshal known for his leadership of the Afrika Korps and his innovative tactics in the North African Campaign, earning him the moniker 'Desert Fox'.
Q 07Which June 1942 naval clash is often called the turning point of the war in the Pacific?
Battle of Midway
The Battle of Midway, fought 4–7 June 1942, cost Japan four fleet carriers (Akagi, Kaga, Soryu and Hiryu) and ended its offensive momentum in the Pacific.
Q 08Who was the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe during World War II?
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Roosevelt picked him over George Marshall for the job in December 1943.
Q 09Which February 1945 meeting of the 'Big Three' leaders discussed the post-war reorganization of Europe?
Yalta Conference
The Big Three met in the Livadia, Yusupov, and Vorontsov palaces near Yalta in Crimea to shape the postwar peace.
Q 10What was the name of the last major German offensive on the Western Front?
Battle of the Bulge
The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive, was the last major German offensive campaign on the Western Front during World War II, launched in December 1944.
Q 11Who oversaw the Allied occupation of Japan after World War II?
Douglas MacArthur
Douglas MacArthur served as Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers from August 1945, directing Japan's occupation and its 1947 constitution, until Truman relieved him in April 1951 and Matthew Ridgway took over.
Q 12Joe Rosenthal's flag-raising photo on Mount Suribachi was taken during which 1945 battle?
Battle of Iwo Jima
The photo shows six Marines raising the flag on 23 February 1945, the second of two flag-raisings on the site that day.
Q 13What did the Lend-Lease Act let the United States do, months before it entered the war?
Q 21Which summer 1943 Eastern Front battle is often called the largest tank engagement in history?
Battle of Kursk
Fought near Kursk in southwestern Russia during the summer of 1943, the battle ended in a decisive Soviet victory.
Q 22What was the primary alliance opposing the Axis powers during World War II?
The Allies
The primary alliance opposing the Axis powers (Germany, Italy, Japan) during World War II was known as the Allies, which included Great Britain and the Soviet Union among others.
Q 23Which German weapon, developed as Aggregat-4, was the world's first practical ballistic missile?
V-2 rocket
To supply war materiel to the Allies
Enacted on March 11, 1941 as bill H.R. 1776, it let the US ship war supplies to the UK, the Soviet Union, France and others before America itself was at war.
Q 14What was the systematic genocide of European Jews by Nazi Germany and its collaborators called?
The Holocaust
The Holocaust was the Nazi genocide in which about six million Jews, roughly two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population, were murdered between 1941 and 1945.
Q 15Which British Prime Minister led the country for most of World War II?
Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom for most of World War II, from May 1940 to July 1945.
Q 16The 1944 Warsaw Uprising against German occupation was led by which Polish resistance organisation?
Home Army
The Home Army (Armia Krajowa) launched the Warsaw Uprising on 1 August 1944 under Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski; it fought for 63 days before capitulating on 2 October 1944.
Q 17What was the code name for the Allied invasion of north-western France on June 6, 1944?
Operation Overlord
The landings themselves were codenamed Operation Neptune and remain the largest seaborne invasion in history.
Q 18The 1943 Operation Mincemeat, a corpse planted with fake documents, disguised the invasion of which island?
Sicily
Operation Mincemeat's planted letters pointed to Greece and Sardinia to mask the real target, Sicily; the corpse of Glyndwr Michael was passed off as Royal Marines Major William Martin.
Q 19Which two Japanese cities were targeted by atomic bombs in August 1945?
Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Hiroshima was bombed on 6 August 1945 and Nagasaki on 9 August; Japan announced its surrender on 15 August, six days after the second bomb.
Q 20What was the name of the German air force during World War II?
Luftwaffe
The Luftwaffe was the aerial warfare branch of the German Wehrmacht during World War II.
Its name Vergeltungswaffe 2 means 'Vengeance Weapon 2', and the liquid-fuelled missile was also the first suborbital launch vehicle.
Q 24What was Germany's western defensive line from the Netherlands to Switzerland called?
Siegfried Line
The Siegfried Line was a German defensive line built during the 1930s opposite the French Maginot Line, stretching over 630 km.
Q 25Who was President when the United States entered World War II?
Franklin Roosevelt
Roosevelt, already in his third term, obtained a declaration of war on Japan and then on Germany and Italy after the attack in Hawaii.
Q 26The 1940 massacre of nearly 22,000 Polish officers is named after which forest?
Katyn
The Katyn massacre was carried out by the Soviet NKVD in April–May 1940; German forces announced the discovery of mass graves in Katyn Forest near Smolensk in April 1943.
Q 27On which date did Japanese carrier aircraft attack the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, bringing America into World War II?
December 7, 1941
December 7, 1941, a Sunday morning in Oahu, was the raid that prompted the United States to declare war on Japan the next day.
Q 28Which 1942-43 Eastern Front battle is considered a turning point of WWII, marking the start of the German retreat?
Battle of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad (1942-1943) was a brutal and costly engagement on the Eastern Front, widely regarded as a major turning point after which German forces never regained the initiative.
Q 29In what city did Anne Frank and her family hide during World War II?
Amsterdam
Anne Frank and her family hid from the Nazis in a secret annex in Amsterdam, Netherlands, for over two years.
Q 30Who was the Emperor of Japan during World War II?
Hirohito
Hirohito, known posthumously as Emperor Shōwa, reigned from December 1926 until his death in January 1989.