ON THIS DAY

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June 6, 1944

D Day

The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during the Second World War. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D-Day (after the military term), it is the largest seaborne invasion in history. The operation began the liberation of France, and the rest of Western Europe, and laid the foundations of the Allied victory on the Western Front.

150,000 Allied service personnel participated, 4,415 Allied troops were killed and 12 countries were part of the invasion. Total German casualties on the day are not known but are estimated as being between 4,000 and 9,000 men.

The D in D-Day stands for… Day.

It is actually a general term for the start date of any important military operation, and is often used when the exact date has not yet been decided or is being kept top secret. Most military operations will be given a D-Day and a H-Hour, which refers to the specific time of day the operation will start.

Military planners would refer to the days before the operation with terms like D-5, which would mean they were talking about what would happen five days before the planned operation, or D+3, which would refer to plans for three days after.

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