D-Day Facts

Since we’ve been talking about D-Day in class, I found an interesting article written on the 70^th anniversary of the D-Day landings with ten interesting things about that day. Here’s a link to the article: http://www.euronews.com/2014/06/03/70-years-on-amazing-facts-you-may-not-know-about-d-day/

Below are some facts, summarized, that I found especially interesting:

I found the second fact pretty interesting: a British officer named Terence Otway was in charge of attacking the Merville battery on D-Day. To ensure that his men wouldn’t leak the information and ruin the attack. Otway send thirty of the “prettiest” members of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, dressed as civilians, to the local pubs. The women did everything they could to try and get the information from the men, but none fell into the trap, and the information remained secret.

As we’ve been talking about D-Day in class, I’ve wondered what the “D” stands for. Fact number 6 explains that it really doesn’t stand for anything. D-Day and H-Hour stand for the time and day an operation is supposed to begin, so the phrase “D-Day” isn’t special to WWII. The day before D-Day is represented as “D-1” and the day after is “D+1.” This means that if the start date of the operation (D-Day) is changed, all the other dates in the plan don’t have to be changed.

According to the article, Eisenhower once said, “Andrew Higgins… is the man who won the war for us.” Andrew Higgins was the man who designed the LCVPs, or the amphibious (forces landing from the sea) vehicles. These vehicles allowed the Allies to cross the English channel into France and launch the D-Day invasion. The LCVPs are also known as “Higgins boats,” and have one major disadvantage: troops have to unload equipment and disembark over the sides, exposing them to enemies. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Higgins)