This subject has come up before, but last week it surfaced again… everyone seems to have their own opinion as to what the “D” in “D-Day” stands for. During our after golf discussion that address “important subjects,” it was decided that the “d” in d-day stood for departure or decision or doomsday or debarkation or day of decision or just plain day.
The fact is that the “d” doesn’t actually stand for anything — it’s just a placeholder used to designate a particular day on the calendar. Time Magazine reported on June 12, 1944 that “as far as the U.S. Army can determine, the first use of D for Day, H for Hour was in Field order No. 8, of the First Army, A.E.F., issued on Sept. 20, 1918, which read, ‘The First Army will attack at H-Hour on D-Day with the object of forcing the evacuation of the St. Mihiel salient.’” So the term stretches back to World War I. The term allowed units to effectively coordinate their operations ahead of time even when they didn’t know the actual start date, and also provided flexibility in the event that the launch day shifted.
“D-Day” as we have come to know it refers to the morning of June 6, 1944 when Allied forces staged an enormous assault on German positions on the beaches of Normandy, France.
But the invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944 wasn’t the only D-Day of World War II. Every amphibious assault — including those in North Africa, the Pacific, Sicily, Italy, etc. — had its own D-Day.
Just another point of interest…. we usually see the “D” in D-Day capitalized. That’s because it usually is referring to the Allied invasion of Normandy. It is properly written in lowercase when the term is being used generically, and capitalized when it refers to the 1944 Normandy invasion.
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