"why Juno?" Topic

OK, this may have been asked before, but why was Juno Beach given the codename 'Juno'? I was aware of a story that it was originally called Jelly, like the other British beaches after fish, but was changed when it was decided that Jelly wouldn't be an appropriate place for men to die. I also read that it may be something to do with the fact that to Canadians Jelly is the equivalent of the British Jam. But why that would matter, I couldn't work out? Also, the word Juno is very close to the invasion date June and may have given the game away? Anybody got any clear ideas?

I believe it was named after a roman Goddess the mother of Mars.

Wait, the British sector beaches were named after fish??? I suppose it make sense (SWORDfish and GOLDfish), but I had always assumed they were named because Sword sounds very martial, and Gold because of its value…

Damon.

Well, we Canadians also named our music awards (=Grammies) "Juno". There's probably some mundane reason why, but it came after the beach. Just sayin'.

Juno for J comes from a phonetic alphabet like these

link

During planning they designated 17 intial Sectors (beaches) including Juno (J) using words from the phonetic alphabet. They added an additional 8 more sectors (one of which was Utah for U) later on.

Sorry it's a bit of an unexciting explanation.

The use of Juno in the phonetic alphabet probably does come from Roman mythology.

I thought it was randomly chosen?

Timbo, it was. The code words were randonly selected from a list of codewords. The usual form is for a set of codewords to be chosen at random from the master-list. That set of words is then refined by deleting those that are silly or which accidentally give away too much. The final codeword is then chosen from the remaining short list.

Jimmy,

I think you're confusing the overall Landing Beach codenames with the Beach Sectors, which were named using the phonetic alphabet. For example, Omaha Beach had Beach Sectors Dog, Easy & Fox.

Indeed. Overlord was primarily planned by the British.

The British (and Dominion) officer class twits of WW2 had priveleged backgrounds and went to the 'best' schools. Those of low intellect could afford to go the the best universities, where they would graduate in really useful subjects like fine arts and classics.

This classical theme is reflected many times during the war in the choice of code names like Juno (a Roman Goddess).

Occasionally a realy good senior officer with the common touch would issue code names that his men could identify with. eg. the airfields around Rangoon named after whiskies: John Haig, Black & White, Highland Queen, Johnny Walker, Scotts Club, Canadian Club.

Savlon,

What utter codswallop. You couldn't be more wrong (apart from the airfield names around Rangoon). The codewords were randomly generated from a list compliled by bored clerks – and still are, as mentioned by Tim above. The MoD is actually still using the original list of random words, with which to generate operational names!

Codenames such as the ones you mentioned were generated locally. Individual formations or units often generated their own code-words locally, without reference to the Uber-List. Hence you get the airfield names you mentioned, as well as 53rd (Welsh) Division launching operations with names such as 'Daffodil', 'Leek', 'Sospan', etc.

Centrally-planned ops were almost always named from the uber-list to help preserve operational security. Overlord, Neptune, Sword, Juno, Gold, Mulberry, Tonga, etc… The American side of the operation took names from the American uber-list, hence Omaha, Utah, Chicago, etc.

R Mark Davis,

My mistake. I guess the sectors named for the phonetic alphabet were Mike and Nan?

Here's a selection of other operational names used by 21st Army Group in NW Europe 1944-45:

Perch, Deadstick, Mallard, Epsom, Martlet, Pomegranate, Bluecoat, Spring, Goodwood, Tractable, Totalize, Greenline, Astonia, Windsor, Paddle, Cobra, Infatuate, Alan, Pheasant, Colin, Market, Garden, Plunder, Goldflake, Veritable, Varsity, Neptune (used twice, oddly), Atlantic, Mitten, Charnwood, Jupiter, Wellhit, Undergo, Switchback, Aintree, Clipper, Vitality, Blockbuster, Blackcock, Valediction, Grenade, Turnscrew, Widgeon, Torchlight, Archway.

Oh yeah, definitely compiled by an upper-class twit with a classics obsession…

Jimmy,

Yes, they were labelled alphabetically from west to east, so for example, Jig & King were in Gold Beach, Mike & Nan were in Juno Beach and Queen & Roger were in Sword Beach. The sequence also included the sectors in between the actual landing beaches.

Each sector where troops were to be landed was also subdivided up into white, red and green sub-sectors. White was usually in the centre of each Beach Sector, while Red & Green were on the flanks (though not all sectors had a White sub-sector). Here's a diagram of Omaha, showing the beach sectors and sub-sectors:

What Mark said – only thing to add is that I've read the list was complied with a view to words that would be understood regardless of the speaker's accent. I've not seen official confirmation of that though.

As a completely off topic aside I'd sooner have a Classics graduate on either Front Bench rather than the PPE-career politician wonks we get these days. That way they'd have at least read Thucydides and have an understanding of how the world really works.

For those who didn't know, the UK's contribution to Operation UNIFIED PROTECTOR (Libya 2011) was named Op ELLAMY, one of those randomly selected operation names. However, several of the sub-ops had their names selected by a staff officer, and the choice of names seems to have intrigued David Cameron, as this quote reveals:

"I've even found the person – we were rather concerned why all these missions seemed to have the names of Wagnerian operas – and I've even found the Wagnerian enthusiast from PJHQ [Permanent Joint Headquarters] who named all these missions!"

link

And therein lies one of the dangers of picking your own operation names. Operational security (i.e. giving away your intentions as part of the operational name – see Opeation 'Iraqi Freedom') is the obvious danger, but another danger is that a politically/culturally insensitive name might be chosen. George W Bush's government dropped a gigantic bollock when they put the word 'Crusade' into an operational name. The Royal Marines' first operations in Afghanistan were also mocked for using bird names chosen locally that were viewed as being a bit 'wussy'.

I was waiting to see if someone said the 'fish' thing was true, as I'd never heard of it. Sounds a bit like squaddie humour, applied after the event. Can you imagine the names of Sword and Gold being joined by Cat, Dog and Cuttle in examinations of the assault landings?

Wow, that certainly clears up ANY confusion I had about the matter! I am not sure where I heard the fish names idea, but it's a strange coincidence, whatever!

it's a strange coincidence, whatever!

That's what coincidences are.

Q? What do Attila The Hun, Alexander The Great and Zorba The Greek have in common?

A. They all have 'The' as a middle name.

R Mark Davies wrote:

Perch, Deadstick, Mallard, Epsom, Martlet, Pomegranate, Bluecoat, Spring, Goodwood, Tractable, Totalize, Greenline, Astonia, Windsor, Paddle, Cobra, Infatuate, Alan, Pheasant, Colin, Market, Garden, Plunder, Goldflake, Veritable, Varsity, Neptune (used twice, oddly), Atlantic, Mitten, Charnwood, Jupiter, Wellhit, Undergo, Switchback, Aintree, Clipper, Vitality, Blockbuster, Blackcock, Valediction, Grenade, Turnscrew, Widgeon, Torchlight, Archway.

Epsom, Goodwood and Aintree suggest a slight fondness for the horsies, but other than that I can see no common theme anywhere.

White was usually in the centre of each Beach Sector, while Red & Green were on the flanks

Do you know of any case where white was not the central sector?

I always understood the sector colours were assigned for the benefit of the naval contingent landing the pongoes, so green for the starboard hand and red for the port on the run-in.

All the best,

John.

True, as well as a few gamebirds. :o)

I always thought that white was in the middle, but there appears to be at least one sector on Omaha where red adjoined green, with no white in between. That may be an error in translation, but it's repeated in every map I've seen of Omaha.

If there's no central sector, then white cannot be it, but where there is, I think it is always white, and when there is a white, I think it is always central. What my question should have asked is, where there is a white sector, is there any case you know of where it was not the central one?

I'm sure that's made it all a good deal less clear.

All the best,

John.

Hey! Classics is THE original university major! All this engineering and what not are Johnny-come-latelies! We've been using the same text books ( Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides, Plutarch,…) for 2000 years! Saves a fortune in buying new books!

Also, Canadians have no confusion over Jam and Jelly!

LOL I see what you mean, John! Yes, where there's a white sub-sector it's always in the middle and where there's a middle sub-sector, it's always white. My apologies for -poor use of the English language!

:o)

It was Easy & Fox Sectors on Omaha that appear to have had red & green sub-sectors, but no white. Dog Sector had red, white and green.

So instead of Operation Market Garden it could of had the more appropriate name of Operation Colin Plunder?

"I'm not sure what a fine arts degree has to do with naming beaches Gold, Sword, Omaaha, and Utah?"

The code names in the American sector were selected by a US staff officer while the other beaches were chosen from a master list of code words. Unlike today where we have to use touchy-feely code names to avoid upsetting the people we are invading ;)

Mobius, absolutely! But I think those two ended up being used as they were a double-barrelled combination.

Number4, yes that's correct and as a direct result operational security went out the window. A German intelligence officer wouldn't have needed a very high IQ to work out which beaches were the American ones… ;o)

"bird names chosen locally that were viewed as being a bit 'wussy'"

That's probably why the Supermarine Shrew was renamed the Spitfire!

Well, they say every day is a school day, I certainly have learned a lot more about landing beaches and codenames, thanks for that chaps.

I remember reading somewhere years ago that the Commonwealth beaches were to be Gold, Jelly and Sword after the fish, but that Churchill demanded 'Jelly' be renamed as 'I'm not sending men to fight for something called Jelly'.

It's rather a shame to learn that this splendid anecdote is probably bollox.

And great to see a bit of ignorant 'Class War' rubbish being spat out – I thought that had all died out in the 70s?