D-Day

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.

Given the segregated nature of American society at the time of WWII, and of the armed forces, there were significantly fewer Black sevicemen than white ones and they were often relegated to secondary roles. Black sailors could only serve as cooks and mess stewards. Although there were black army combat units, most black units were in support roles such as transport. As a result, there were few, if any, black men who participated in the Normandy landings. Answer In Stephen Ambrose's book "Pegasus Bridge" there is a reference to two black men being in the British airborne company that glider-landed to seize the Ranville and Bénouville bridges.

I have no more details beyond what is recorded there, or on how unusual that would be in the home British army at the time.

Answer 2, I am French and I live in Normandy. I teach at the University of Caen. There were a few black veterans at D Day memorial events in Normandy but I was shocked not to see any representation of black troops in the many exhibits since there were apparently 18OOO black soldiers at Normandy Beach on D Day. The people in charge of the Muséee pour la Paix told me they were deeply sorry but they have no pictures,letters or anything representing black soldiers. The representatives of the city of Caen and region gave me the same answer. They would like to exhibit documents if they can find any. If I can help gathering information from veterans' families, even stories orally passed on, I will be more than glad to transfer them to the appropriate authorities. In any case I intend to do research on the issue at the archives of St Lô. As a French person I have felt immensely grateful all my life to all the soldiers, black and white, who came to fight in Normandy.

ANSWER 3

Colour has nothing to do with commenorating war

Answer 4

Color had a great deal to do with it. My father served on Normandy beach. His group was tasked with supplying the allied forces just after the landing. The only time they were asked to fight was in obvious "suicide" missions. The black soldiers response was usually " I'll go where ever you go" Officers and politicians did not respect or value them, except the Tuckegee Airmen.

Ans 5 - I won't get into why they aren't represented - but there were definitely NOT 18,000 black troops on D-Day. I think there is a '0' too much there as there were black troop in a Barrage Balloon Battalion, an Artillery Battalion, and some Engineer Companies. Possibly 1,800 to 2,000 black troops in total on D-Day. Many more arrived on the following days as Truck Drivers and more Artillery and Engineer units.

Many of those American soldiers, sailors & airmen KIA on D-Day were brought back to the US to be reburied here. This option was offered to the falilies in the late 1940's & early 1950"s. However, many families felt is was best to leave their sons where they fell, liberating France & ending NAZI tyranny.

This was typical of not just the Normandy cemetery at Collievielle-sur-Mer, but American cemeteries all over the world. After a battle, it was the duty of members of the Grave Registration Services to locate and identify the soldiers Killed In Action. The proper thing to do was to bury the dead as soon as possible and record and mark the graves. Later, maybe a few months after the front had moved further away or maybe after the war had ended, the bodies were moved to a central cemetery.

Then after the war, the Government offered to return them back to the US so their families could bury them at their hometown. Some families accepted this offer and others did not. For example; General George Patton expressed a wish to be buried in Europe with the soldiers he served with.

The current cemetery at Normandy was set-up as a temporary burial site on 8 June 1944, just 2 days after the Allies landed on near-by Omaha Beach. This was later selected as the permanent site by the ABMC.

All American cemeteries on foreign soil are considered soverign property of the United States of America and as such, the Stars and Stripes flys over the rows of markers.

The American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) was established by Congress in 1923 to commemorate the service, achievements, and sacrifice of U.S. armed forces where they have served overseas since 1917, and within the U.S. when directed by public law.

The Commission administers, operates, and maintains 24permanent American burial grounds on foreign soil. Presently there are 124,913 U.S. war dead interred at these cemeteries, 30,921 of World War I, 93,242 of World War II and 750 of the Mexican War. Additionally 6,149 American veterans and others are interred in the Mexico City and Corozal American Cemeteries.

The ABMC website allows you to search for those who remain buried on foreign soil. You can search for someone by Name or by Unit ID. It provides their name, rank, serial number, hometown, and date they were killed in action, along with the cemetery and the exact location of their headstone.

The Location of all cemeteries maintained by the ABMC, both WW1 and WW2, are as follows:

Cemeteries

Aisne-Marne, France

Ardennes, Belgium

Brittany, France

Brookwood, England

Cambridge, England

Corozal, Panama

Epinal, France

Flanders Field, Belgium

Florence, Italy

Henri-Chapelle, Belgium

Lorraine, France

Luxembourg, Luxembourg

Manila, Philippines

Meuse-Argonne, France

Mexico City, Mexico

Netherlands, Netherlands

Normandy, France

North Africa, Tunisia

Oise-Aisne, France

Rhone, France

Sicily-Rome, Italy

Somme, France

St. Mihiel, France

Suresnes, France

The true number of resistance fighters who answered the call on D-Day will probably never be known because each cell was self contained for security reasons(if you don't know you can't tell the neighborhood Gestapo). Free French soldiers and agents also parachuted into France to assist the Resistance. I do not believe that DeGauls Free French forces fought in any large numbers on D-Day but contributed immensely during the breakout and drive to Paris.

For France besides the Resistance, there was an offical Free French Marine Commandos Batailion on D-Day, lead by Cdt. Kieffer, an Alsatian, which took among others the Casino of Carentan, and was allowed by the Britisch troop to have the honour disembarke first on the French beaches. They lost most of their men. Several hundred other Frenchmen where fighting on that same day under US and UK uniforms. Lt. Clostermann, another Alsatian, was the RAF pilot that shot the most German planes during WW2.

Although the term "D-Day" was applid to the day when any allied amphibious operation was launched, the term generally refers to the invasion of German occupied Europe at Normandy on June 6, 1944. Pearl Harbor is an American Naval base in Hawaii. The Japanese attacked it on December 7, 1941.

Two generals who helped plan D-Day would include Eisenhower and Montgomery. Pearl Harbor was not planned by generals but by Japanese admirals. Two of them would be Nagumo and Yamamoto.

ANS 2 - The Genereal who was in charge of D-Day planning was British General Frederick Morgan. His planning committee started in early 1943.

My grandfather fought in Company E of the 175th, and I have found the followng sources to be of great itnerest.

Joseph Balkoski, "Beyond the Beachhead: The 29th Division in Normandy" (available from Amazon for about $12), is easily the best and most thoroughly researched history. Googlebooks has a large excerpt published at

http://books.google.com/books?id=RDYiS6TzZMQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=beyond+the+beachhead&sig=hY_fpyev9PD8QKbshrjFTmpvJIw

The official US Army history of the Normandy Campaign has a lot on the 175th, due to the large role they played at Isigny, Grandcamp, and St. Lo .

Reference: US Army History of WW2 volumn entitled "Cross-Channel Attack" by G. A. Harrison.

http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/100-11/100-11.htm#cont

http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/100-13/st-lo_0.htm#cont

Ewing, Joseph, "29 Let's Go!" ---> Excellent book. Extremely helpful.

D-Day determined the entire outcome of the war. If the d-day invasion had been repelled the entire allied assault may have broken up. Without a foothold on continental Europe, no major assaults would have been possible. It was the deciding factor in the allies winning the way.

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I beg to differ. The outcome of World War II had long since been decided by the time that the western Allies landed at Normandy. There was no way that Germany could have won the war from any time after their crushing defeat at Stalingrad (autumn 1942 to early February '43). Their failed offensive in summer 1943 to try to pinch off the Kursk salient put the exclamation point on this matter. And for comparison, while the U.S., Britain and Canada were struggling to expand their beachhead in Normandy the Soviets were launching an enormous offensive that led to the deep envelopment and crushing of the largest German force of the war to ever be destroyed in one campaign, Army Group Center, in Byelorussia and eastern Poland. Read up on it. The outcome of the war had been decided at Stalingrad. After that it was impossible for Germany to win the war. The best they could do was to hope to grind the Allies down enough that some kind of negotiated peace could be made but that was an unrealistic hope (and the leaking of the Morgenthau plan, even though it wasn't ultimately carried out, made this seemingly clear to the Germans.)

The Soviets endured many thousands of times worse than anything that was thrown at U.S. or British or Canadian forces, and broke the back of the German military. Without the Soviets bleeding the Germans white on the Eastern Front there would have been no D-Day at Normandy in any case, it would have never been attempted unless Germany was already fatally weakened.

The most important outcomes to result from the invasion of northwest Europe by the western Allies?

1. It probably speeded up the defeat of Germany by a few months.

2. It made sure that France was liberated by the western Allies and not "liberated" by the Soviets after they got through tearing the Germans a new one.

3. It gave the American people a beloved myth that they have cherished ever since, the myth that America (and the U.K., and Canada, though they never seem to remember them) saved the world from Nazi tyranny by the gallant sacrifices made in storming the beaches of Normandy and singlehandedly turned the tide of the war in one fell swoop, stopping the Nazi war machine in its tracks and rolling it back to its destruction. Unfortunately that's all the most ridiculous hogwash to anyone who has bothered to read about the war on the Eastern Front and finds out that over 80% of Germany's war dead were killed fighting against the Soviets, that the Soviets destroyed vastly more German units than the rest of the Allies put together several times over, that the bulk of Germany's military was concentrated on the Eastern Front even after D-Day, roughly two-thirds of its units and most of its best units, et cetera, et cetera. But it plays really well in Peoria, right? To people who don't know anything about World War II beyond the dropping of the atom bombs and that movie Saving Private Ryan. But people who've looked into the matter know the Soviets won the war against Nazi Germany while the U.S. and U.K. and Canada merely helped out.

D-Day (literally means Day-Day) had an enormous effect on the second world war. In essence it was the beginning of the end. D-Day is the day when the allies launched a counter attack against the Germans and secured a foot hold on the beaches of Normandy. From there the counter attacked the German offensive and liberated Europe.

The biggest effect was that it stopped more of Europe from falling into Communist hands. When Stalin was congratulated on reaching Berlin he replied "Czar Alexander got to Paris."

1. Germany and Russia were carrying on secret peace negotiations through Switzerland from 1943-44. With the failure of D-Day Normandy,1944 both Germany and Russia knew the Western allies would not be able to think about another invasion of western Europe for at least another two years. Hitler would be able to transfer the bulk of his forces in the west to the east and with the added troops he was sure that Russia would agree to peace negotiations. 2. Germanys jet fighter technology was ahead of the allies and jet fighter production had started already began. With D-Day failure, that German would have time to produce jet fighters in large quantities and that would have put an end to the Allied Bombing campaign by the end of 1945. 3. German Scientist were pretty advanced with their Nuclear and rocket Programs and would have been the first nation capable of launching a nuke by rocket or dropping a nuke. Scary.

D-Day robbed the Germans of valuable time and any chance of a victory through negotiations.

The D Day you are referring to I believe is the day of the Normandy Invasion in France during World War 2. It was conducted to invade enemy territory (held by the Nazi Germans) so they could drive the Germans out of the nations they had invaded and oppressed. The Allied Forces had to drive the Nazis out of France and all the other European countries occupied by the Nazis to liberate the oppressed peoples of Europe. This gained the freedom of the world essentially.

There are actually many D days in World War 2. For example there were the D Days of Africa, Italy, Greece, Norway, all the Pacific Island battles, and China. But most people think of D Day being the day the Allied Forces landed on the Normandy France beaches.

The correct phrase is you are at the beach.

Both are correct depending on you are . If you are not inside the beach properly you are at the beach, and if you are inside it you are on the beach.

You are walking on an avenue and the beach is near to the avenue, you are at the beach. As soon as you leave the avenue and enter the beach, you are on the beach.