ABSTRACT
In the Military terminology of World War II, the expression D-Day was used simply to designate the planned starting day for any military operation. It was an entirely professional designation, used perhaps thousands of times in the course of the war. The D-Day invasion plan required the completion of various essential preliminaries, such as the assembly of the required forces. The Allied invasion plan involved a vast naval armada of warships and landing craft crossing the English Channel through mine-free lanes to points offshore from the five designated invasion beaches. During the night of 56 June, 7,000 aircraft and gliders transported the British and US airborne divisions to their drop zones in Normandy, with the landings starting just after midnight. Overall, the D-Day landings had been a success, and by midnight the best German opportunity to throw the Allies back into the sea had already slipped away.
