[smnrchrds]

Semi-related:

"Passports please! British paratroopers met by French customs after D-Day airdrop

British paratroopers recreating an airdrop behind German defences to mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day were met by French customs officials at a makeshift border checkpost.

Moments after the paratroopers had hit the ground and gathered up their chutes, they formed an orderly queue and handed over their passports for inspection by waiting French customs officials in a Normandy field."

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/passports-please-britis...

Video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7ZY4rlAQus

[ceejayoz]

Reminds me a bit of when the UK accidentally invaded Spain on a training exercise. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/uk-invade-spa...

> Lord West said: "It wasn't one of the best days in my time. I had a phone call from the military commander saying, 'Sir, I'm afraid something awful's happened.' I thought, 'Goodness me, what?' And he said, 'I'm afraid we've invaded Spain, but we don't think they've noticed.'

> "They charged up the beach in the normal way, being Royal Marines—they're frightfully good soldiers of course, and jolly good at this sort of thing—and confronted a Spanish fisherman who sort of pointed out, 'I think you're on the wrong beach.'

[ahi]

"Juan Carlos Juarez, the town's mayor, said at the time: "They landed on our coast to confront a supposed enemy with typical commando tactics. But we managed to hold them on the beach.""

I would not have been able to get this out without giggling.

[medstrom]

"First Sea Lord" is such a great rank.

[pyuser583]

One of my favorite.

[umanwizard]

Swiss soldiers have accidentally crossed into Liechtenstein a few times. Similarly, nobody made a fuss.

[skeezyboy]

the british armed forces are atrocious. i simply cannot fathom how britain controlled so much of the planet at one point

[lenkite]

Because they had a good officer corps producing some ridiculous military geniuses in their age of empire. As an example, the Duke of Wellington (Arthur Wellesley) was a monster who was unstoppable in the military conquest of India. Many other British commanders failed battling Indian states, but he seemed to win just about every battle, at times being both outnumbered and outarmed.

I would go on to say that it wasn't for that man, it is likely the British conquest of India would have been confined to only a limited territory. Indian states were modernizing and militarizing rapidly (relatively for that era), so any delays in conquest would have made India a hard nut to crack.

[bee_rider]

This was 2002. They are friendly countries, seems like everyone responded appropriately.

[oaththrowaway]

Because the food was so bad and the women were so ugly that they had no choice to but leave

[bigyabai]

> i simply cannot fathom how britain controlled so much of the planet at one point

Boats, optionally guns.

When you reflect on how easily America became an imperialist crybaby, it can't have been hard for Britain either.

[peeters]

> Passports please! British paratroopers met by French customs after D-Day airdrop

Err, D-Day anniversary airdrop. That headline has only one correct literal interpretation, and it's wrong (not ambiguous, wrong).

[arrowsmith]

I don't know about the US, but in the UK you can definitely say "D-Day" to mean "an anniversary of the original D-Day", not strictly 6/6/1944. It's not wrong.

Just like you can say "Independence Day" to mean July 4th of any year, not only the specific historical date on which the US declared independence.

[peeters]

Hmm I'll take your word for it that that's true, but I would say the examples are very different. Independence Day is a title/holiday retroactively created to commemorate the event (which apparently might not have even happened on July 4).

Whereas D-Day was something soldiers used to describe that specific day even before it happened. And you would hear things like "D-Day plus 23" to describe points in time, you wouldn't have to specify the year

So to me the Independence Day analogy is a little weak.

[jeremyjh]

That was the original usage but there is no reason to think usage hasn't changed in Britain, if a British person is saying it is now used this way.

[nemomarx]

This would make sense if there's often D Day ceremonies. In the us I think that's all moved to memorial Day, so D-Day pings only as the original event here

[arrowsmith]

You could say e.g. "today is D-Day" to mean "today is June 6th".

But if you said "D-Day" without context people would assume you meant the event in WWII. So yeah, I guess the original headline is definitely misleading, if not strictly inaccurate.

[glimshe]

I'm not a betting man, but I were, I'd bet on most readers having understood it correctly. I suspect it was meant to be click bait, though.

[lucianbr]

The headline definitely didn't make any sense to me (I was thinking maybe an Onion article?) before reading the rest.

[simonklitj]

Made me do a double take for sure.

[wat10000]

Strange article. Of course you have to go through passport control when you cross an international border.

[bitwize]

These French customs officials seemed more on the ball than the one I encountered. (Checked my passport, but didn't stamp it, causing problems for me upon landing for my next leg in Helsinki.)

[metabagel]

I don’t think there is any requirement to stamp passports. Some people specifically ask for a stamp, because they want the memento.

[ta1243]

In the Schengen area, if you are a non-EU person, until recently you needed to ensure you are stamped in and out otherwise you'll run into issues with them thinking you may have overstayed.

After UK went all freedumb and left the EU this caused a lot of issues, I have a UK colleague that visited his wife's family in Poland over a Christmas, didn't get a stamp on the way back, then ran into problems a few months later as they argued he had been in Europe for months.

[bitwize]

The stamp is acknowledgement of your tourist visa. Maybe EU citizens don't need one, but as an American entering France I certainly did. If I didn't, I sure wish the visibly armed Finnish lady who led me back near one of those beat-you-up interrogation rooms had known, it could've saved us both some hassle and me a major scare.