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

Calling all you historians I was just wondering if any one could tell me how D-Day got its name.

Straining my E grade A level history knowledge here

I think its just the codename the allied high command gave it, designed to allowing to name the event without giving away to the Germans what was actually going to happen. As appossed to calling it 'Invasion Day' or 'Liberation Day' and giving away the plan (secrecy was of utmost importance for D-day landings to suceed.)

Why particularly 'D', i'm not sure maybe it was just catchy and easy for the allied command to remember and prevented confusion amongst the troops.

Fairly standard military terminology...

H Hour would be a way of defining a set time, for instance the hour an attack was due to start - a good way of timetabling events in advance prior to an actual physical time being agreed upon.

D Day - the same thing for a specific date.

Thanks for that. I'd heard that is was short for "The Day" and "Der Day" so I'd just thought I'd ask

to back up this explanation, in french it's called "le jour J'