D-Day. The Invasion of Normandy. Operation Overlord. It goes by various names, but we've all heard about it through history class, grandparents, the news or shows like "Band of Brothers."
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June 6, 1944, is the day when more than 160,000 Allied forces landed in Nazi-occupied France as part of the biggest air, land and sea invasion ever executed. It ended with heavy casualties — more than 9,000 Allied soldiers were killed or wounded in those first 24 hours — but D-Day is largely considered the successful beginning of the end of Hitler's tyrannical regime.
Do you actually know what D-Day stands for? Apparently it's the most frequently asked question at the National World War II Museum, but the answer isn't overly simple. Many experts have varying opinions, including that the D simply stood for "day," a code used for any important military operation. Others have said it's just alliteration, like "H-Hour," when a military assault begins.
While the true meaning remains up for debate, we'll go with what U.S. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower said about it through his executive assistant, Brig. Gen. Robert Schultz: "Be advised that any amphibious operation has a 'departed date;' therefore the shortened term ‘D-Day’ is used.” He said there were actually several other D-Days during the war — Normandy was just the biggest and most well-known.
A lot of weather-related requirements were necessary to pull D-Day off. The days needed to be long for maximum air power usage; a near-full moon was needed to help guide ships and airborne troops; and the tides had to be strong enough to expose beach obstacles at low tide and float supply-filled landing vehicles far onto the beach during high tide. H-Hour was also crucial in that it relied on those tides to be rising at that time. There also had to be an hour of daylight just beforehand for bombardment accuracy.
Only nine days in May and June seemed to fit those requirements, so commanders eventually settled on June 5; However, thanks to forecasts that showed a short window of good weather that day, Gen. Eisenhower decided last-minute to switch D-Day to the early hours of June 6.