Home > Astronomical History, Ephemeris Program > 11/11/2013 – Ephemeris – D-Day and the moon

11/11/2013 – Ephemeris – D-Day and the moon

November 11, 2013

Ephemeris for Veteran’s Day, Monday, November 11th.  The sun will rise at 7:34.  It’ll be up for 9 hours and 44 minutes, setting at 5:18.   The moon, 1 day past first quarter, will set at 2:12 tomorrow morning.

Veterans’ day used to be called Armistice Day, celebrating the end of War to End All Wars.  There was, of course a great war after that, and its greatest battle was the invasion on D-Day, a date governed by the position of the Moon.  The full moon on June the 6th, 1944 gave light for the gliders and paratroopers light to carry out their operations at midnight.  Plus the high tides were near noon and midnight and the low tides near dawn.  The idea was to hit the beach at low tide to enable the landing craft to operate without hitting the obstacles the Germans planted in the tidal zone.  It was great for the landing craft, but the troops had a lot of open beach to cover to get to some sort of shelter.

Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.  They may be different for your location.

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