Robert Capa article.

[steveyork]

With reference to controversies etc. I think it is important to keep in mind that Capa was very much aware of the value of his "brand".
Without diminishing the risks he exposed himself to in the Spanish war or on Omaha beach or elsewhere, it is important to point out, that he likely exaggerated his own bravery just as he designed his own persona through name changes and exaggerations in his autobiography.

He arrived at Omaha beach in one of the last waves at the most "peaceful" spot.
What he documented was not combat, but the engineering troops arriving after the most lethal action, but he tried to make another story.

That he experienced exploding shells and bullets was untrue, which is clear from his own pictures as well as statements from the soldiers arriving at the beach at that time.

He was there for an extremely short time before he returned to the UK to submit his pictures to the LIFE UK editor. This is documented by film sequences recorded in the returning boat.
The "disastrous developing of the film" story is likely to be untrue, but emphasised by people with interest in supporting the "dramatic" story.

I don't really think a photographer should risk his/her life to show the horror of war, so I am OK with the fact that Capa was not directly involved. However, my opposition to the exaggerations of Capa is due to the damage I suspect he may have caused.
I think many photographers have died because they thought that it was necessary to be in the "line of fire" to be a great war photographer.

Here's an article of someone who claims to have stormed ashore at Normandy with Capa. He seems to contradict some of the things you say, but yeah, Capa was known for his stories and hyperbole. I don't know anything about it; I wasn't there.

https://www.historynet.com/i-stormed-ashore-with-robert-capa-on-d-day.htm

 

[Nitroplait]

Here's an article of someone who claims to have stormed ashore at Normandy with Capa. He seems to contradict some of the things you say, but yeah, Capa was known for his stories and hyperbole. I don't know anything about it; I wasn't there.

https://www.historynet.com/i-stormed-ashore-with-robert-capa-on-d-day.htm

Neither was I. The problem is that those who govern that historical material that could help shed light on what is fact and fiction, are limiting the access to those who will support the story of the legend and working against those more critical.

A. D. Colemann did a bit of work a few years back and some of the conclusions are noted here: https://medium.com/exposure-magazine/alternate-history-robert-capa-on-d-day-2657f9af914

 

[Highway 61]

A. D. Colemann did a bit of work a few years back and some of the conclusions are noted here: https://medium.com/exposure-magazine/alternate-history-robert-capa-on-d-day-2657f9af914

The research work which A. D. Coleman did is more than excellent and, yes, he for sure nailed it : Capa was there on D-Day, but not with the 1st assault wave, and that film lab fate which overheated the negatives thus destroyed everything but the very few photos which could be salvaged is a big, very big lie, done on purpose to enhance Capa's myth, to create a fable, and to, as a matter of fact, inflate the selling price of the very few pictures he took on Omaha Beach before he got back to England to give them to the lab (and before he got back to Normandy again : only very recently, some evidence of Capa seen rewinding his camera, hidden behind a small bricks wall, during a street battle in a small Normandy town, has been discovered and authentified on a photo taken by someone else.

This doesn't change anything to the fact that he was an exceptional figure of the first times of the XXth century photojournalism and an absolute great photographer, that he was one of the very few who founded Magnum, that he often took many risks (if not at Bloody Omaha like he and others said he had, he attended many other warfields who could have killed him and one killed him for good in 1954 eventually), that he was a gambler, a poker player, a kind of odd magyar-latin-lover who seduced many women including Ingrid Bergman for instance, that he was a friend of Ernest Hemingway and Gary Cooper, that he also took beautiful yet a bit unknown Kodachromes, that he never really recovered after Gerda's accidental death in Spain, and that he was a man living in more than troubled times, not a robot with no defects.

We and his work both deserve serious researches and all the efforts to reach the historical truth ; he as a man deserves respect forever, in spite of having lied at some point, no doubt (the Omaha Beach pictures, the "Falling soldier" Spanish picture). The life of a guy of that calibre having gone through what he went through cannot be seen as either white, or black. The greyscale spreads widely on the paper sheet.

 

[steveyork]

The research work which A. D. Coleman did is more than excellent and, yes, he for sure nailed it : Capa was there on D-Day, but not with the 1st assault wave, and that film lab fate which overheated the negatives thus destroyed everything but the very few photos which could be salvaged is a big, very big lie, done on purpose to enhance Capa's myth, to create a fable, and to, as a matter of fact, inflate the selling price of the very few pictures he took on Omaha Beach before he got back to England to give them to the lab (and before he got back to Normandy again : only very recently, some evidence of Capa seen rewinding his camera, hidden behind a small bricks wall, during a street battle in a small Normandy town, has been discovered and authentified on a photo taken by someone else.

This doesn't change anything to the fact that he was an exceptional figure of the first times of the XXth century photojournalism and an absolute great photographer, that he was one of the very few who founded Magnum, that he often took many risks (if not at Bloody Omaha like he and others said he had, he attended many other warfields who could have killed him and one killed him for good in 1954 eventually), that he was a gambler, a poker player, a kind of odd magyar-latin-lover who seduced many women including Ingrid Bergman for instance, that he was a friend of Ernest Hemingway and Gary Cooper, that he also took beautiful yet a bit unknown Kodachromes, that he never really recovered after Gerda's accidental death in Spain, and that he was a man living in more than troubled times, not a robot with no defects.

We and his work both deserve serious researches and all the efforts to reach the historical truth ; he as a man deserves respect forever, in spite of having lied at some point, no doubt (the Omaha Beach pictures, the "Falling soldier" Spanish picture). The life of a guy of that calibre having gone through what he went through cannot be seen as either white, or black. The greyscale spreads widely on the paper sheet.

Ha, ha, it all needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Coleman, for example, concludes Capa was probably in 13th or 15th waves, but the article cited above, from eyewitness who landed on Omaha with Capa, claims they were in the 2nd wave. I didn't read Coleman's analysis in depth, it's not that important to me, but he seems to be drawing a lot of hard conclusions from circumstantial evidence which itself is very questionable. Not exactly court of law type of evidence. Ha, ha, not saying what Capa writes is true, it probably involves lots of exaggeration, but I would be surprised if it was total fabrication. Too many witnesses could be trip him up. Truth is probably somewhere in the murky middle.

 

[Phil_F_NM]

If only people who have actually been in combat spoke about Capa, we wouldn't have these idiotic debates. :bang:

Let's just pretend that Capa was a man, with all the possible foibles of a human man, mental health conditions included. History has shown us that Hungarian Jews didn't fare too well, in fact most of those who lived in the Pale of Settlement had experienced generations of persecution. So, Capa may have grown up with this weight of epigenetic stress already in his DNA, and we now know that this can predispose people to addiction, depression, mental illness. After experiencing the Spanish Civil War, perhaps Capa just wanted to continue to feel that danger, and the only way would be to get close to the action. For someone who has been in combat, sometimes the only way to actually feel alive is to be close to death. This way of living is well documented, as conflict photographers continue to seek it out, in spite of even knowing that it is harmful to them, just as a person in recovery may know that the bottle, the pipe, the needle, the straw, or the pills are a maladaptive way of living life. Maybe Capa just wanted to live life the way he knew how, he certainly lived it large with a hard-living group. Do we really care if Capa embellished his sea stories?
Why does it matter, nearly 80 years later, to nitpick the accomplishments of this photographer who was on that beach while Coleman wasn't and I wasn't you weren't. Why does this continue to come up with so many armchair tacticians and armchair combat photographers, who weren't there and haven't been anywhere close in their lives? It's effing ridiculous that this discussion is still happening. Every person who has experienced combat judges themselves over times when they think they were a coward or should have made a different decision. Why are so many scrutinizing moments in Capa's life when it has zero effect on their own?

Phil Forrest

 

[Highway 61]

Truth is probably somewhere in the murky middle.

It can be, it can also be where Coleman says it is, and this wouldn't retain anything to the fact that Capa was one of the greatest.

Spanish researcher José Maria Susperregui recently brought out some unquestionable evidences according which the "Falling soldier" picture, another part of Capa's myth and another part of the questionable Capa legacy material, had been taken in Espejo not in Cerro Muriano, contraringly to what the official story tells.
Both villages are indeed located near Cordoba, like Capa said. Problem : there is no documented warfield nor even any reported little battle at Espejo. Nothing. And all the pictures taken just before and after the "Falling soldier" one tend to tell that Capa documented a Republican exercise with no phalangist enemy around, and that the "Falling soldier" picture is a total fabrication. A genious fabrication, that is.

Does this deprive Capa's other photos taken in Spain from their quality and strength ? No.

@Phil : why the hell would you want that only people having been to combat could speak about Capa ? Why continuing to tell that Coleman is the devil while he just technically and very seriously debugged the overheated film myth, widely telling basic things about emulsion and film which any amateur having developed his own film knows perfectly ? Why would we have to continue to swallow that stupid forged story to continue to love Capa's personality and work, at the end of the day ? Come on.

 

[Phil_F_NM]

@Phil : why the hell would you want that only people having been to combat could speak about Capa ? Why continuing to tell that Coleman is the devil while he just technically and very seriously debugged the overheated film myth, widely telling basic things about emulsion and film which any amateur having developed his own film knows perfectly ? Why would we have to continue to swallow that stupid forged story to continue to love Capa's personality and work, at the end of the day ? Come on.

I'm not saying I want that, I'm just saying that it's really disheartening to read comments about this man and his accomplishments, by other men who have done nothing so brave. Maybe read the rest of my comment above and not just the first line, which is a bit of hyperbole.

Phil Forrest

 

[kshapero]

I enjoyed the BBC video. I am not naïve to man's foibles, but it is still a great story although tragic.

 

[davidnewtonguitars]

Oh no! Now the "cancel Capa" crowd will have to cancel soldiers who were there with him. This could get out of hand.

 

[Highway 61]

I'm not saying I want that, I'm just saying that it's really disheartening to read comments about this man and his accomplishments, by other men who have done nothing so brave. Maybe read the rest of my comment above and not just the first line, which is a bit of hyperbole.

Thanks Phil. Yes I have read the rest, as you have done with all what I wrote for sure.

We can both celebrate the man and his accomplishments, his talent as a photographer (and not only a "war photographer", because he was way more than that), and still, we can be in the camp of people not believing some fake news, about the "Falling soldier" photo and the "melting emulsion" of the D-Day photos for instance. Capa was not alone, he had publishers, press agencies editors etc. He, as an individual, didn't get rich because of that, at the end of the day.
Did you listen to the "Hi! Jinx." recording ? This interview of him is delightful. The way he pronounces "machine gun" is so close to how anybody would now say "chewing gum" that we cannot help thinking of being in a cartoon or so, in spite of the frightening war topic.

When I look at the photo (link below) he took near Troina, Sicily, in 1943, I always remember his own "The Germans went that way" caption and how he tells, in "Slightly out of focus", that at some point he had felt relieved to have arrived in Germany with some Airborne paratroopers in 1944 eventually, because in Germany, there were no people to always run towards the US soldiers, keeping asking them : "Do you know my cousin in Brook-a-lyn ? Yes, I have a cousin in Brook-a-lyn !", like all the Sicilians did :

https://www.magnumphotos.com/newsroom/conflict/75th-anniversary-allied-invasion-sicily/

😉

 

[Paul T.]

There is by no means any proof Capa wasn't in one of the first waves. To claim there's no doubt over whether he was is reasonable; to claim certainty is ludicrous.

It's also tasteless considering how he died. But minor photographers will always make petty accusations about major ones.

 

[KenR]

Low tide

Low tide

As I understand the Normandy landings, they planned on the first waves occurring at low tide so that the beach obstacles would be visible. The famous photos were either taken with an early wave with visible obstacles or 12 hours later when it was again low tide. I believe that the engineers were there to blow up the beach obstacles, so it seems likely that he was there early on before they were blown up. By late afternoon, with the second low tide, it seems likely that there wouldn’t be any more beach obstacles present, but this is conjecture on my part.

 

[Highway 61]

The famous photos were either taken with an early wave with visible obstacles or 12 hours later when it was again low tide. I believe that the engineers were there to blow up the beach obstacles, so it seems likely that he was there early on before they were blown up. By late afternoon, with the second low tide, it seems likely that there wouldn’t be any more beach obstacles present, but this is conjecture on my part.

Another quite strong possibility is that the soldiers gathered around the beach obstacles at low tide, photographed from the beach by Capa as "hiding from enemy fire" on one of his ten "salvaged D-Day 35mm pictures", were indeed soldiers of a special task force (Combined Demolition Unit 10) whose business was to blow out those beach obstacles once the Allies had broken out the German lines at Colleville-sur-Mer. This confirms the fact that Capa didn't land with the first wave. If he had, all what he would have photographed would have been hundred of dead soldiers floating bodies and tons of randomly discarded things and debris.

It's also tasteless considering how he died. But minor photographers will always make petty accusations about major ones.

Criticism about the D-Day photos myth doesn't come from "minor photographers" but from historians who want to understand and make clear what really happened, which is a normal way of looking at the past. Once and again, this is not to tell that Capa wasn't an exceptional war photographer and I can't see the link with that "considering how he died" thing. He died on a landmine in 1954, so for a matter of "taste" we should refrain ourselves to try to debug some lies (mostly not coming from him directly) about what he did in 1944 ? Wow.

John Morris and the ICP staff, as well as Capa's brother, Richard Whelan and Cynthia Young, were adressed way more reproaches than Capa himself, and not because he was dead already, and for decades, at the time some people began to seriously question the fable of the "melted negatives".

 

[peterm1]

As I understand the Normandy landings, they planned on the first waves occurring at low tide so that the beach obstacles would be visible. The famous photos were either taken with an early wave with visible obstacles or 12 hours later when it was again low tide. I believe that the engineers were there to blow up the beach obstacles, so it seems likely that he was there early on before they were blown up. By late afternoon, with the second low tide, it seems likely that there wouldn’t be any more beach obstacles present, but this is conjecture on my part.

I had a look into exactly this issue a year or two back when this issue came up once before. And I have to say I agree with your conclusion. Without looking up the references once more (and relying upon my memory) I recall that while Capa said he was going in on the first wave and later repeated that this is what he did do, I doubted that a mere photographer would be told in advance which units were going onto the beaches first. Never the less the record seems to confirm that he went in with a unit which, while it did not go in on the literal first wave of landings was never the less one of the units which went in shortly thereafter. I think from memory the unit he was with, was slated to land on the beach within one hour of the very first landing when fighting was still very hot and very heavy on Omaha Beach. (That plan is available online showing planned landing times for specific units). With Capa there was always an element of exaggeration and he always claimed to have gone in with the "first wave" of landings but this seems not to have been literally true. However it was approximately true. My father was Hungarian and aspects of his character reminded me of stories about Capa. Like Capa he was a great story teller and prone to exaggerations that made the story his stories more interesting. I wonder if this is a Hungarian characteristic? 🙂

I specifically agree about the tides. If you look at pictures he took, some pictures clearly showed some of the steel defenses exposed at low tide with water only around their base. These were defenses that were designed to be submerged at high tide. So he had to have been there at low tide, and the first landings were timed for low tide for obvious reasons. I think that is pretty good corroboration if that is needed. So I am quite satisfied that Capa was on Omaha Beach within the first few waves of landings when heavy fire was still being taken by the assault troops and the issue was still in doubt. I did have a record of the unit he was said to have accompanied and there is no doubt too that this unit took heavy casualties as it landed and fought its way off the beach.

I am not going to chase that info down right now but take if from me that references for all of this are available online. Anyone who wants to look it up can confirm the details about tides, assault plans, order of battle, which units went in when and which unit Capa is said to have accompanied during the landing. In short people do not have to theorize about it. Go and look it up.

 

[steveyork]

It can be, it can also be where Coleman says it is, and this wouldn't retain anything to the fact that Capa was one of the greatest.

Spanish researcher José Maria Susperregui recently brought out some unquestionable evidences according which the "Falling soldier" picture, another part of Capa's myth and another part of the questionable Capa legacy material, had been taken in Espejo not in Cerro Muriano, contraringly to what the official story tells.
Both villages are indeed located near Cordoba, like Capa said. Problem : there is no documented warfield nor even any reported little battle at Espejo. Nothing. And all the pictures taken just before and after the "Falling soldier" one tend to tell that Capa documented a Republican exercise with no phalangist enemy around, and that the "Falling soldier" picture is a total fabrication. A genious fabrication, that is....

\

Regarding Capa's presence in Normandy during D-Day, I'm more likely to believe the independent witness, with no dog in the fight, who stated Capa arrived on Omaha with him in the second wave when shot and shell were still flying around. So I don't think it is reasonable to believe Coleman, in that specific regard. The above comment about the tides would also be conclusive. Without more, Coleman is simply wrong, because we have independent witnesses putting the guy on the beach at a certain time.

Regarding the development of film, John Morris has been interviewed regarding this issue, as probably Dennis Banks. Again, witnesses versus Coleman's conclusions drawn from inferences and circumstantial evidence. Just because something is unlikely to happen doesn't mean it didn't happen. Law books are full of such cases. Coleman doesn't have one person who says, "I saw it happen this way." So when his version of events is contradicted by people who were there, who saw it with their own eyes, then most reasonable people are going believe the witnesses.

That's the problem with his analysis. It's far from conclusive. At best it is a possibility but one that contrary to eyewitness accounts. And that's not to say Capa's accounts are totally accurate; most likely they were exaggerated.

 

[Phil_F_NM]

My father was Hungarian and aspects of his character reminded me of stories about Capa. Like Capa he was a great story teller and prone to exaggerations that made the story his stories more interesting. I wonder if this is a Hungarian characteristic? 🙂

I think it's not just Hungarian, but all of the Slovaks. 😀 My maternal grandparents were Polish and "vociferous embellishment" was just a way of communicating. Perhaps it is just the way to get heard by a whole region with a very long history of war and marginalization.

Phil Forrest

 

[Highway 61]

Regarding Capa's presence in Normandy during D-Day, I'm more likely to believe the independent witness, with no dog in the fight, who stated Capa arrived on Omaha with him in the second wave when shot and shell were still flying around. So I don't think it is reasonable to believe Coleman, in that specific regard. The above comment about the tides would also be conclusive. Without more, Coleman is simply wrong, because we have independent witnesses putting the guy on the beach at a certain time.

About the D-Day landing : what says "the independent witness" is very important actually. And it also confirms that this "second wave" (if so) went to the Colleville-sur-Mer key sector of Omaha Beach, where the beach obstacles had been targeted to be blown out at the June 6th morning low tide by the men Capa photographed once he got on the beach and could look behind him.
At the end of the day, first wave, second wave, thirteenth or fourteenth wave (assault waves were following each other very quickly)... that's not the point. The guy got on the beach, he took photos, he risked his life. Did he risk his life highly or lowly ? When you can get a German bullet you can get one, and even a lost one can kill you. He could have got one at the El Guettar battle in Tunisia already, or where ever in Sicily. He was brave, he volunteered to go to Normandy on D-Day and he risked his life, because he wanted to. Landing in Normandy on D-Day required lots of courage for a photographer, and he had the guts. No debate.

I'm with you on all of this, yet the lone remaining huge problem is with what is said, by the myth forgers, to have happened to the films at the London lab, and with that story of the hundreds of Capa's D-Day photos suddenly destroyed by a development fate which, strangely enough, hadn't happen to any human photographer since the invention of photography one century before. So far I haven't read any "independent witness" describing what really happened to the negatives and finally John Morris himself had to tell that he had never seen them with his own eyes. Anyone with common sense can explain the film sprocket holes being visible in the frame the proper way, and can appreciate how totally dumb Cynthia Young's explanations, about the images "sliding on the film", are. Come on, there we're in a Philip K. Dick book or so. The story of a lab beginner having ruined the films by pouring the fixer instead of the developer in the tanks would have been easier to swallow but, how less romantic would have it been, uh uh.

Just because something is unlikely to happen doesn't mean it didn't happen.

Probably. But miracles are unlikely to happen and this doesn't mean they have happened, either.

 

[peterm1]

I think it's not just Hungarian, but all of the Slovaks. 😀 My maternal grandparents were Polish and "vociferous embellishment" was just a way of communicating. Perhaps it is just the way to get heard by a whole region with a very long history of war and marginalization.

Phil Forrest

Thanks Phil That's interesting to know.

 

[peterm1]

Just for the record I will copy here my earlier answer about an article in which the author apparently tried to suggest that Capa's claims about D Day were all bunkum and that he actually landed much much later. I spent quite a bit of time researching it back then including reading online copies of original army records. The original thread was titled "Robert Capa D-day “ruined” film article" and can be found here at RFF.

"Peter, in part I agree with you except that a lot of the writer's alternatives "facts" seem to me to be based on wobbly evidence and outright conjecture.

For example his assertion that Capa in fact went in on the 13th wave, considerably after the first couple of waves as Capa claimed and so instead was landed around 8.15 am. But (an admittedly fairly cursory) examination of readily available information suggests instead that Company E of the 16th Infantry Regiment, U.S. 1st Division (the Company which Capa was accompanying) was landed around 6.40 am. Pretty much just as Capa claimed - though not in the first wave strictly speaking.

e.g. One published report also states: " At approximately 0710 hours, Company G was ordered to move forward toward the front and managed to infiltrate thru a narrow gap between the mine fields between the shingle mound and the cliff overlooking the beach. The section of Company E, 16th Infantry, under command of 2nd Lieutenant Spalding and remnants of two sections from Company E, 116th Infantry, were those troops pinned down at the base of the cliff."
http://www.americandday.org/Document...y-Account.html

Clearly this suggests that Easy Company, 16th Infantry landed amongst the early waves of assault troops otherwise that section would not be in the above place at that time. The other evidence suggesting this is that Capa's photos pretty clearly indicate that the tide was out (the German metal stakes were in no more than a few inches of water). Which I believe was the case during early morning on D Day - the army wanted to go at high tide but this was not possible for a variety of powerful reasons including the presence of obstacles topped by mines which would be submerged at high tide and hence unable to be avoided. So instead they went a little after low tide which also happened to be around dawn and thus a better time on those grounds alone.

Furthermore, some of the writer's claims about Capa, which come across sounding suspiciously like innuendo, is "backed up" by rhetoric like this:

"Using distinctive landmarks visible in Capa’s photos, Charles Herrick has pinpointed exactly where Capa landed on Easy Red: the beach at Colleville-sur-Mer. Gap Assault Team 10 had charge of the obstacles in that sector. An existing exit off this sector made it possible to reach the top of the bluffs with relative ease. Col. Taylor would become famous for announcing to the hesitant troops he found there, “Two kinds of people are staying on this beach, the dead and those who are going to die — now let’s get the hell out of here......"

Relative ease? The first sentence in that quote is contradicted by the second - Col Taylor's very words make it perfectly clear that the fight at Colleville-sur-Mer was anything but a walk though. And my memory from reading about D Day (though I have not gone back to those sources to check) is that this Colleville-sur-Mer exit point referred to here was strongly defended by heavily fortified bunkers for obvious reasons - such exit points always are because they are obvious points of attack.

Overall the flavor of the article I get is that the author seems to be trying to suggest that Capa was playing fast and loose with the truth and was not as brave as history records and needs to be debunked. Well, I acknowledge that Capa did sometimes exaggerate but here's the thing. His photos are real. And they do not show men strolling ashore against weak or no resistance. I have NEVER heard any account of Omaha beach that claims that even after the first couple of hours of fighting. The key facts of his story are real enough - though Capa did later in his bio say he went in, in the first wave. Which could be braggadocio, or its could be him misremembering, or it could be him deciding to stick with the story already described in Life's interpretation. So what - that reasoning is like splitting hairs or asking how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

And as to the writer's claims about what Life said regarding the images, anyone who has ever written a book or article (hell anyone who has ever read a book or article) knows that you never take entirely seriously what editors add or subtract from the story or put in captions - I doubt very much that even Capa had editorial control over the captions on his images. So I am not willing to be so readily critical of Capa as some here because in the heat of battle or after the passage of years he got some details wrong - or the magazine did."

 

[Mr_Flibble]

how he tells, in "Slightly out of focus", that at some point he had felt relieved to have arrived in Germany with some Airborne paratroopers in 1944 eventually, because in Germany, there were no people to always run towards the US soldiers, keeping asking them : "Do you know my cousin in Brook-a-lyn ? Yes, I have a cousin in Brook-a-lyn !", like all the Sicilians did
😉

Capa parachuted into Germany during Operation Varsity in March 1945. 😉
Some US divisions had already broken through the Siegfried Line in November/December 1944 or were slogging their way through it at Huertgen forest. I don't rightly recall if Capa actually covered any of those units in Germany before Varsity.