Agreed, and as azain mentioned above, Coleman is addressing the mythology surrounding these pictures. I'd consider it his exercise in fact finding and I don't see anything wrong with it.
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/Documents/1st_ID-16th_IR-2nd_Bn-G_Company-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 mis remembering, 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.
I suppose it is hyperbole to ask (but I cannot stop my self from asking anyway): What next, claims that Capa downloaded his photos from the internet? OK that's hyperbolic and I retract it. But I enjoyed saying it anyway.
🙂
