Does the 'D' in D-Day stand for 'Dover'?

Answer 1

D = Day and H = Hour. Every military operation has a D-Day and an H-Hour. Events are planned to occur in advance of (D minus, H minus) or following (D plus, H plus) that day and time. The Normandy Invasion was planned months before the exact date and time were determined. I have no idea what the actual schedule was, but just to give an example, gathering the invasion force in England could have been set for sometime during D-2, actual debarkation on D-Day H-4, the naval bombardment at H-0:30, etc., without stating any dates or times. The schedule could even be put on hold, like a space shuttle countdown, if there was an unexpected development. If part of the plan was dependent on the exact angle of the sun (wanted the defenses silhouetted by the rising sun?) and on the evening of June 5 the weather reports indicated a cloudy morning, D-Day could have been delayed until the 7th or 8th, H-Hour would have a minute or two earlier, and no one would have had to retype, reprint, and redistribute hundreds of copies of the schedule.

I wondered the same thing about what D-Day stood for until I talked to my day about his WWII experience for a class that I had. He talked about his units D-Day in North Africa. It was the departure day for an operation. Normandy is just the most famous 'D-Day', so people just use that term to refer to most recognized and well known D-day at Normandy.