h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Why was D-Day called D-Day ?

Anybody know ?

There are many theories about the name "D-Day". One says, that it was the fourth day in a series of planned actions, named "A-Day", "B-Day" and so on. Another one says that it simply means "Decision Day". US archives claim that all data upon the name is lost. Most historians say that there was not a specific reason for this name and that its big meaning simply emerged from it being such an important date.

Perhaps the abbreviation of French "débarquement"?
IIRC this is what I learnt in French lesson about 500 years ago.

Most military launches occur on 'D-Day'. I've always thought it was part of the military's jargon. There were several 'D-Days' in World War II, this just happened to be the biggest and the most significant.

Jimi X is correct I think. It is common parlance to say it's X ammount of time to D-Day. D-Day was actually initially scheduled for the 4th June but bad weather revented it, again on the 5th. The 4th was chosen as being the 4th anniversary of the Allied troops evacuated from Dunkirk. Using the anniversary to re-establish a foothold on mainland europe was aimed at beeing a major propaganda ploy.

Jimi X and D.D got it right, it's just military jargon, as is H-hour.

nope you are all wrong, instead of the person who wrote that the d stands for "débarquement"...
it should be called the i-day (invasion day)...
yepp my french is not as poor as i thought

(Cynical Browneyes writes)
Dear Doctor & Floh,

You should, by now, know that anything a French teacher tells you (if it's not in French) is just to illustrate a point. It seems to have been effective in this case but is nevertheless misleading.
"Débarquement" = disembarcation, landing; fits as an acronym and there were others which grateful nations subsequently ascribed to the "D" in D-Day: "Deliverance", "Destiny" but these were just pieces of reverse engineering.
JimiX, DD, & RRod have got it right. If my father had been a horse, I would have got it straight from the horse's mouth; but he wasn't, he was running a taxi service to the popular resort beaches.

If you think that "S O S" stands for "Save Our Souls", it don't. That is just an expression that was attached to the distress code. Previously the code was "C Q D".
Properly titled, the International Morse Code shows:
CQD -.-. --.- -..
SOS ... --- ...
(I know which I think is easier to deal with.)
It is widely believed that the first time it was used in anger was by the Titanic.

What about SOS stands for "Save Our Sex" ?? Hein?

code name D-Day for Debarkation Day....wasn´t so difficult...

Well, it's been said again and again, but I'll say it again. D-Day is military jargon for the day some scheduled event happens. You count down to an event by saying "D minus 3," which means three days before the day.

"D-Day" does not stand for "Dembarkation(sp?) Day," "Destruction Day," "Doomsday," or anything like that, any more than "H-Hour" stands for "Happy Hour."

There were lots of D-Days in WWII, as well as Korea, Vietnam, etc. Probably the day the Persian Gulf ground war started was referred to as "D-Day" by the troops, but since that's what every starting day is called, no one bothered to glorify that particular day by calling it "D-Day" for years afterward. As one historian on the History Channel said, "Some idiot thought that D-Day would be a good name for the starting date of an operation, like D-Day of invading Guadacanal or D-Day of invading Tokyo, but since the Normandy D-Day was so big, it's become known as THE D-Day."

Having said my peace, you can say "D-Day" stands for anything you like. It was used as a propoganda tool to justify to American mothers why several thousand of their sons died charging up a beach into machine gun fire. Similarly, the German military didn't refer to their lightning invasions as "blitzkriegs." That term was coined by propoganda news reports to fire up the civilians into supporting the war.

Yes, but it become tru, that D-Day (in this case THE D-day) is an invention of Dwight D.(sic!) Eisenhower... and it stands for "Debarkment to France"..(i.e.landing with boats)
Read his memoires...
Normaly it is "H minus 10"...H stands for Hour..
and "Blitzkrieg"...(to blitz someone) has been said to describe the bombing of London by the Germans in "Unternehmen Barbarossa" 1941..
Holladireiduliöh!
littleNero

Aaaaaaarrrrghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh !!!!

I shall elaborate.
This forum was badly in need of a link from:
"Is there intelligent life on Earth".
So, now it's got one.

Evidence of this significance should not be overlooked.

The way I heard it was thus: the term D-Day stood for Day-Day, and the term H-Hour stood for H-Hour. As for the meaning of THAT, I have yet to discover.

You seem refreshingly informed about the military and history

Never trust memoirs.

A good example of this is the fact that Mickey Rooney claims that Walt Disney named Mickey Mouse after him. He tells some story about sitting on Walt's knee.

This is complete and utter bunkum (Sorry Mickey but it is). Any serious Disney scholar will tell you that it was infact Walt's wife who renamed the original Mortimer Mouse, Mickey.

Any way the point of that is that memoir writers more often then not view the past with rose tinted spectacles.

SOS was not in use when the Titanic went down. Titanic send a CDQ. Part of the reason mariners switched to SOS was the Titanic disaster. CDQ is simply harder to hear and it is easier for CDQ to get lost in radio traffic.

Granted the germans did not call an attack a blitzkrig, but it was a type of attack. It means "Lightning Warfare," in other words you mass morotized infantry, fast tanks and planes and launch an overwhelming assault until you reach the end of your supply rope. You then resupply, regroup and do it again.


Also "D-Day" is jargon, (I grew up in the military and it is my hobby). My grandfather landed on "Utah Beach" in Normandy and was part of shore-fire control (he told the ships where their shells were falling and where they should be). Also, most of Normandy but up very little resitance to the beachead. This is because Hittler thought that Normandy was a diversion and that the real attack would come from Gen. George S. Patton in the south. No troops were massed by the Germans to defend the coast where the Aliies landed, there was little more than a token force in fortifications.

Marvin,
SOS had been around for some time before the Titanic.
See:
http://metronet.com/~nmcewen/arc_current.html
for confirmation.