Twenty years after planning the Allied invasion of Normandy, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower received a letter that asked him how the June 6, 1944, amphibious assault came to be commonly called D-Day. Answering through his executive assistant, Eisenhower replied that "any amphibious operation has a 'departed date'; therefore, the shortened term 'D-Day' is used."
But retired Army Lt. Col. Mark Calhoun, a senior historian at the National WWII Museum in New Orleans, does not buy Eisenhower's explanation, reasoning that it took more than one day to load the Allies' ships and landing craft for their journey across the English Channel to fight the Germans on the beaches of France.
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