Other D-Days

The Normandy invasion on 6 June 1944 was not the first D-Day. The US Army first employed the term for the battle of St Mihiel on 20 September 1918.

Nor was it the only D-Day of the second world war: in fact, there were many others. Operation Torch, the invasion of north Africa, starting on 8 November 1942, was the first; the Pacific war against Japan saw the last.

Today, most people think of D-Day as referring only to the Normandy landings on 6 June 1944. Perhaps for this reason, the phrase has gone out of use for recent military operations. The invasion of Iraq had 'A-Day' and 'G-Day' (for Air and Ground respectively), for example, rather than a traditional D-Day.

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