Duncan Harley

The Normandy Landings, more commonly referred to as D-Day, took place on 6 June 1944. The term D-Day is of course military-speak for the jumping-off date for any military operation. Timed to the minute, large scale military interventions rely on precise timing in order to coordinate both the delivery of firepower and the delivery of the necessities of warfare. The D simply stands for "day" and the designation traditionally marks day one of manoeuvres. Thus, the day before June 6, 1944, was known as D-1, invasion day was highlighted as D-Day and the subsequent days are described as D+1, D+2, D+3 and so on. Today is 4 June 2019 so by definition we are now at D+27,391. Mind you, the 1944 invasion planning had begun some months if not years before and were it not for a break in the weather, the landings might have been delayed by weeks. But, apart from losing the element of surprise, the planning would simply have been delayed by D...