This is a list of Navy Cross recipients for actions of valor carried out during World War II, awarded by the United States Department of the Navy. World War II was a global military conflict, the joining of what had initially been two separate conflicts. The first began in Asia in July 1937 as the Second Sino-Japanese War; the other began in Europe in September 1939 with the German and Soviet invasion of Poland. This global conflict split the majority of the world's nations into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers.