Naval Battles of World War II Trivia
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69 free Naval Battles of World War II trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This naval battles of World War II trivia quiz covers the sea war in every ocean. In the Pacific it runs from Pearl Harbor and the sinking of Force Z through Java Sea, Coral Sea, Midway and the brutal night actions off Guadalcanal, to the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot, Leyte Gulf, Taffy 3's stand off Samar and Yamato's last sortie. In the Atlantic and Mediterranean it takes in the River Plate, Narvik, Taranto, Matapan, the hunt for the Bismarck, the Channel Dash, PQ 17, Operation Pedestal, the Barents Sea, the North Cape and the U-boat war that turned in Black May 1943. The questions range from easy (the date of Pearl Harbor, how many carriers Japan lost at Midway) to genuinely hard (which cryptanalyst first read Italian naval Enigma, who commanded Yamato's final mission), with the admirals, codebreakers, ships and decisions that shaped each battle. If you want the wider conflict, our World War 2 and World War I pages are the place to go next. Every answer has been checked against Wikipedia's battle articles and the official histories they cite, and each explanation adds one more thing worth knowing.
30 of 69 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which October 1944 engagement was the largest naval battle of World War II?
Leyte Gulf
Leyte Gulf, fought 23–26 October 1944 in the waters around the Philippines, was the largest naval battle of the war by ships and men engaged, and it broke the Imperial Japanese Navy as a fighting fleet.
Q 02Which May 1942 battle was the first in which the opposing fleets never sighted or fired on one another?
Coral Sea
Coral Sea, fought 4–8 May 1942, was the first carrier-versus-carrier battle; every blow was struck by aircraft, and the Japanese seaborne push toward Port Moresby was turned back.
Q 03How many Japanese fleet carriers were sunk at the Battle of Midway in June 1942?
4
Akagi, Kaga, Sōryū and Hiryū all went down, along with many irreplaceable veteran pilots.
Q 04How did US codebreakers confirm that the Japanese target 'AF' was Midway?
A fake message that the atoll's water plant had failed
The ruse was 'A fake message that the atoll's water plant had failed', broadcast so Japanese listeners would pick it up; soon a Japanese signal reported that 'AF' was short of water, confirming Midway as the target.
Q 05Which US carrier was lost at Midway, only weeks after being patched up in three days at Pearl Harbor?
USS Yorktown
USS Yorktown, damaged in the May carrier battle, was patched in about 72 hours at Pearl Harbor and reached Midway in time; crippled by Hiryū's aircraft and torpedoed by submarine I-168, she sank on 7 June 1942.
Q 06Who commanded the Japanese carrier strike force at both Pearl Harbor and Midway?
Chūichi Nagumo
Chūichi Nagumo led the Kidō Butai, the carrier striking force, at both Pearl Harbor and Midway; Yamamoto, who planned both operations, never sailed with the carriers.
Q 07The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor took place on what date?
December 7, 1941
The raid came on December 7, 1941, a Sunday; the first wave struck shortly before 8 a.m. Hawaiian time, and the United States declared war on Japan the following day.
Q 08Which battleship got under way during the Pearl Harbor attack and was deliberately beached?
USS Nevada
USS Nevada was the only battleship to get under way that morning; bombed as she headed for the sea, she was run aground near Hospital Point so she would not block the channel.
Q 09The 353 Japanese aircraft that struck Pearl Harbor flew from how many carriers?
6
All 6 carriers of the Kidō Butai — Akagi, Kaga, Sōryū, Hiryū, Shōkaku and Zuikaku — took part, launching two waves from a position roughly 200 miles north of Oahu.
Q 10Along with the target ship USS Utah, which battleship sunk at Pearl Harbor was never refloated?
USS Arizona
USS Arizona, shattered by a magazine explosion that killed 1,177 of her crew, was never raised; her wreck lies beneath the memorial dedicated in 1962.
Q 11How many Americans were killed in the Pearl Harbor attack?
2,403
The toll was 2,403 Americans killed, most of them sailors, with a further 1,178 wounded and 188 aircraft destroyed, nearly all of them on the ground.
Q 12Which October 1944 Philippines engagement was history's last battleship-versus-battleship action?
Surigao Strait
Surigao Strait, on the night of 24–25 October 1944, saw Oldendorf's old battleships cross the T of Nishimura's force; Fusō had already been torpedoed, and Yamashiro was sunk by gunfire and torpedoes.
Q 13In October 1944, Halsey took the Third Fleet north after a decoy carrier force led by which Japanese admiral?
Jisaburō Ozawa
Q 21How many Bismarck survivors did British warships rescue before a U-boat scare ended the effort?
110
Dorsetshire and the destroyer Maori took 110 men aboard before a suspected U-boat sighting forced them away; U-74 and the weather ship Sachsenwald found a handful more, and over 2,000 of Bismarck's crew died.
Q 22How many of HMS Hood's crew survived her destruction on 24 May 1941?
3
Only 3 men — Ted Briggs, Bob Tilburn and Bill Dundas — survived; a shell from Bismarck reached Hood's aft magazines and she sank in about three minutes, taking 1,415 of her crew.
Q 23In which strait did Bismarck sink HMS Hood?
Denmark
The Denmark Strait, between Greenland and Iceland, was the route Bismarck and Prinz Eugen took toward the Atlantic convoy lanes; Hood blew up there on 24 May 1941 after a shell reached her magazines.
Jisaburō Ozawa's Northern Force, carriers with only about 108 aircraft between them, was bait; the Third Fleet chased it north, leaving the San Bernardino Strait unguarded for Kurita's Centre Force.
Q 14Who commanded the escort carrier group Taffy 3 during its desperate stand off Samar on 25 October 1944?
Clifton Sprague
Clifton Sprague's Taffy 3, a handful of escort carriers with a thin screen of destroyers and destroyer escorts, held off Kurita's battleships and cruisers off Samar, losing the carrier Gambier Bay and several of its escorts.
Q 15Off Samar, Kurita mistook Taffy 3's escort carriers for what?
Halsey's main fleet
Kurita took the ships for 'Halsey's main fleet' of fast fleet carriers and, fearing air attack, broke off after a confused running fight, sparing the vulnerable landing force on Leyte.
Q 16Which destroyer captain charged Kurita's fleet off Samar and was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor?
Ernest Evans of USS Johnston
'Ernest Evans of USS Johnston' turned alone toward the Japanese line at flank speed, laying smoke and torpedoing the heavy cruiser Kumano; he went down with his ship and received a posthumous Medal of Honor.
Q 17Which battleship, Yamato's sister ship, was sunk by carrier aircraft in the Sibuyan Sea in October 1944?
Musashi
Musashi, Yamato's sister, absorbed more than a dozen torpedo hits on 24 October 1944 as carrier aircraft concentrated on her; Kurita's other heavy ships came through the Sibuyan Sea largely intact.
Q 18Yamato's one-way sortie toward Okinawa in April 1945 is best known as which operation?
Ten-Go
Yamato and five escorts were sunk by carrier aircraft before reaching Okinawa, for the loss of ten American planes.
Q 19Which vice admiral commanded Yamato's final sortie despite believing the plan futile and wasteful?
Seiichi Itō
Seiichi Itō, commanding the Second Fleet, objected that the sortie would achieve nothing until Kusaka flew in to persuade him; he went down with Yamato when she capsized on 7 April 1945.
Q 20Swordfish from which British carrier jammed Bismarck's rudders on 26 May 1941?
HMS Ark Royal
HMS Ark Royal's Swordfish, flying from Force H out of Gibraltar, scored the torpedo hit that jammed Bismarck's rudders; King George V and Rodney finished her with gunfire the next morning.
Q 24The May 1941 breakout of Bismarck and Prinz Eugen was code-named what?
Operation Rheinübung
Operation Rheinübung sent Bismarck and Prinz Eugen into the Atlantic in May 1941 to raid the convoys supplying Britain; the sortie ended within ten days when Bismarck was sunk on 27 May.
Q 25After the December 1939 Battle of the River Plate, Admiral Graf Spee was scuttled off which neutral port?
Montevideo
Montevideo, in neutral Uruguay, allowed Graf Spee 72 hours; her captain, convinced a far stronger British force waited outside the estuary, scuttled her on 17 December 1939.
Q 26Which cruiser in the River Plate squadron was serving with the Royal Navy's New Zealand Division?
Achilles
Achilles, a Leander-class light cruiser manned largely by New Zealanders, fought alongside her sister Ajax and the heavy cruiser Exeter, which was badly mauled by Graf Spee's heavy guns.
Q 27The November 1940 raid on Taranto used 21 Swordfish flying from which carrier?
HMS Illustrious
HMS Illustrious launched the 21 Swordfish on the night of 11–12 November 1940; their torpedoes and bombs put half the Italian battle fleet out of action in the first all-aircraft ship-to-ship attack in history.
Q 28Why did Japanese planners study the Taranto raid while preparing the Pearl Harbor attack?
Both targets were shallow harbours
'Both targets were shallow harbours': Taranto showed aerial torpedoes could run in water only about 12 metres deep, and Japan fitted wooden fins to its Type 91 torpedoes so they would work in Pearl Harbor's shallows.
Q 29Which British admiral commanded at both Taranto and Cape Matapan?
Andrew Cunningham
Andrew Cunningham led the Mediterranean Fleet through both; after Taranto he wrote that the Fleet Air Arm had shown itself 'the Navy's most devastating weapon', and at Matapan his battleships destroyed a squadron of Italian heavy cruisers at night.
Q 30Whose 1941 break into Italian naval Enigma gave warning of the Matapan sortie?
Mavis Batey
Mavis Batey, then Mavis Lever, worked out in March 1941 the break that yielded 'Today's the day minus three'; a reconnaissance plane was then sent up so the Italians would not suspect codebreaking.