D-Day
D-Day called in English the date of military operations . A comparable German expression is D-Day , a French jour J . In many languages, the term is now specifically for the 6. June 1944 as the beginning of the Allied landings in Normandy in World War II .
Word origin
The abbreviation D-Day (as well as H-Hour or Day X in German ) denotes the point in time of a major military operation, without revealing anything about the content, place or time itself. D-Day is also seen as an abbreviation for Day Day , Departure Day , Decision Day , Delivery Day , Deliverance Day , Doomsday or Debarkation Day , but the origin of the name is not certain. As an alternative explanation, one often finds that D and H are simply repetitions of day and hour , respectively . This is supported by the fact that the French say “Jour J”, which follows the same pattern. Presumably, this was initially only used as a placeholder for a specific day and time, although these were not yet fixed or had to be kept secret.
The first proven use of the designation was in World War I and can be found in Field Order Number 9, First Army, American Expeditionary Forces of September 7, 1918 for the Battle of St. Mihiel . There it says:
"The First Army will attack at H hour on D day with the object of forcing the evacuation of the St. Mihiel Salient."
"The First Army will attack at hour H on day D with the aim of forcing the evacuation of the Arch of St. Mihiel."
Accordingly, when planning the operations, regardless of the day finally set, the steps / tasks on the days before and after are counted as follows: D - 4 is e.g. B. for the 4th day before day X, D + 7 for the 7th day after day X.
The abbreviation D-Day is also used for Decimal Day , February 15, 1971, when the pound sterling was converted to the decimal system .
Landing in Normandy
Commonly known as D-Day is June 6, 1944, the day on which the landing of Allied troops in Normandy began during World War II , and with it the long-planned opening of a western front of the anti-Hitler coalition . D-Day marked the start of Operation Overlord , and the landing itself was code-named Operation Neptune .
See also
literature
- Antony Beevor : D-Day. The battle for Normandy. C. Bertelsmann, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-570-10007-3 .
