{"id":21251,"date":"2014-06-21T23:53:36","date_gmt":"2014-06-22T03:53:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/?p=21251"},"modified":"2016-01-10T16:52:23","modified_gmt":"2016-01-10T21:52:23","slug":"alternate-history-robert-capa-on-d-day-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/2014\/06\/21\/alternate-history-robert-capa-on-d-day-6\/","title":{"rendered":"Alternate History: Robert Capa on D-Day (6)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A.<\/a>What Did Capa Know …<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the previous post<\/a> in this series, I looked at Robert Capa’s own account of his experiences at Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944,\u00a0in his 1947 memoir,\u00a0Slightly Out of Focus<\/em>. Here we pick up his narrative after he escapes on a hospital evacuation ship \u2014 coincidentally the U.S.S. Samuel Chase<\/em>, the same vessel that had brought him there, now heading back to England from Normandy.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

“I woke up on a bunk. My naked body was covered with a rough blanket. On my neck, a piece of paper read, ‘Exhaustion case. No dog tags.’ My camera bag was on the table, and I remembered who I was.<\/em><\/p>\n

“In the second bunk was another naked young man, his eyes staring at the ceiling. He said, ‘I am a coward.’ He was the only survivor from the ten amphibious tanks that had preceded the first waves of infantry. \u2026 During the night the man from the tank and I both beat our breasts, each insisting that the other was blameless, that the only coward was himself.”<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

\"Robert<\/a>

Robert Capa, publicity photo for “Slightly Out of Focus,” 1947.<\/p><\/div>\n

Back in Weymouth on the morning of June 7\u00a0(as confirmed by the U.S. Coast Guard<\/a>) after his brief but fraught trip to the beachhead<\/a> at Normandy, Capa writes,<\/p>\n

“I was treated as a hero. I was offered a plane to take me to London to give a broadcast of my experience. But I still remembered the night enough, and refused. I put my films in the press bag, changed my clothes, and returned to the beachhead a few hours later on the first available boat.”<\/em><\/p>\n

He thus had a chance to put his precious, eagerly awaited films directly into the hands of John Morris within an hour (Weymouth is roughly 136\u00a0miles from London, a short hop by plane). Instead, self-confessedly riddled with guilt, “I put my films in the press bag, changed my clothes, and returned to the beachhead a few hours later on the first available boat,” arriving “[b]ack on the beachhead that night.” Perplexingly, he then adds,<\/p>\n

“The day was D-plus-two [which would make it June 8], \u2026 and the party [in the press camp] was a French wake in my honor. I had been reported dead by a sergeant who had seen my body floating on the water with my cameras around my neck. I had been missing for forty-eight hours, my death had become official, and my obituaries had just been released by the censors.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Hmmm. Did he not get back to Normandy till the morning of the 8th? David Scherman, who met the Chase<\/em>\u00a0when it docked back in England\u00a0and made Capa’s portrait immediately upon landing, insists that it came into Portsmouth on the evening\u00a0of the 6th, according to Richard Whelan’s authorized 1985 Capa biography<\/a>.\u00a0Be all that as it may, Whelan also states, Capa\u00a0“gave [his films]\u00a0to an Army public-relations officer for transport by courier to London.”\u00a0Inexplicably, it took 12\u00a0hours or more for the films to reach Morris via courier.\u00a0If you believe the legend, then, this decision of Capa’s created the extreme deadline pressure that resulted in the destruction of his images.<\/p>\n

Should we believe it?<\/p>\n

\u2026 and When Did He Know It?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Robert<\/a>

Robert Capa, D-Day frames from 6 June 1944. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.<\/p><\/div>\n

And should we believe Morris and Capa?<\/p>\n

A few days after June 6, Capa told a colleague, TIME<\/em> correspondent (and head of TIME<\/em> and LIFE<\/em>‘s European staff)\u00a0Charles Wertenbaker, that he left Omaha Beach because “I shoot for an hour and a half and then all my film is used up.” (As quoted in Whelan\u2019s biography.)\u00a0But it’s simply impossible that Capa went to Normandy with only four rolls of 36-exposure 35mm film, three of which he expended on\u00a0pre-landing images made aboard the U.S.S. Chase<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Written several years after D-Day, Capa’s memoir makes no such claim; it proves unsparingly honest in its description of his terror on Omaha Beach<\/a> as the motive for his abrupt departure, just minutes after arriving. Perhaps because he wrote much of that book\u00a0(even dictating parts of it) well past his publisher’s deadline, without any fact-checking (per Whelan’s introduction to the 2001 Modern Library\u00a0reprint edition<\/a>), it contains assorted errors of fact.<\/p>\n

\"Robert<\/a>

Robert Capa, “Slightly Out of Focus” (1947), cover.<\/p><\/div>\n

But such issues seem trivial compared to the primary one: What images had he made at Omaha Beach, and what actually happened to his films once they reached John Morris in London? By the time he drafted\u00a0Slightly Out of Focus<\/em> Capa had had ample opportunity to examine his remaining film, including the samples of supposedly “ruined” negatives. Even if no one else had told him so, he knew these frames did not represent catastrophic emulsion melt. He also knew how many rolls of film he’d exposed at Omaha Beach, and how many images he’d made there. He had the opportunity right then to correct the misleading account that had circulated widely.<\/p>\n

Yet that would have embarrassed not just him but his close friend John Morris and everyone else involved in the cover-up, not to mention all those who’d unknowingly promulgated this fable. So, instead, he doubled down on it:<\/p>\n

“Seven days later I learned that the pictures I had taken on ‘Easy Red’ were the best of the invasion. But the excited darkroom assistant, while drying the negatives, had turned on too much heat and the emulsions had melted and run down before the eyes of the London office. Out of one hundred and six pictures in all, only eight [sic] were salvaged. The captions under the heat-blurred pictures read that Capa’s hands were badly shaking.”<\/em><\/p>\n

\""Behind<\/a>

* “Behind the Photo: Robert Capa’s D-Day” (2014), screenshot<\/p><\/div>\n

So far as I can determine, this represented\u00a0the debut\u00a0appearance in print of the heat-damaged negatives story, coming straight from the horse’s mouth, thus making it official. Capa therefore created two indelible images of D-Day: first, the one of the wounded Huston Riley gamely making his way to shore; and, second,\u00a0the one of the melted emulsions of his Omaha Beach negatives dripping down in front of people’s eyes in a London darkroom.<\/p>\n

Birth of A Factoid<\/b><\/p>\n

So when Mia Tramz, in the brief text accompanying\u00a0“Behind the Photo: Robert Capa\u2019s D-Day,”<\/a> a brief TIME video from May 29, 2014, writes, “[A]lthough Capa shot approximately 106 frames on the beach, only a handful have survived,” she’s simply perpetuating what has become an institutionally endorsed\u00a0lie.<\/p>\n

\"Mia<\/a>

Mia Tramz, from text accompanying “Behind the Photo: Robert Capa\u2019s D-Day,” TIME video, May 29, 2014.<\/p><\/div>\n

Not satisfied even with that great exaggeration,\u00a0“investigative journalist” Marie Brenner, in\u00a0her hagiography for\u00a0Vanity Fair<\/em><\/a>, takes it to the max, writing in hyperventilated prose, “Capa, who prided himself on not knowing what he shot, knew exactly what he had that day: four rolls full of what could well be the most stirring images of warfare ever created.” Sheer hyperbole, of course; she’s the first to claim that Capa made four<\/em> rolls of exposures at Omaha Beach.<\/p>\n

\"Marie<\/a>

Marie Brenner, quote from “Robert Capa\u2019s Longest Day,” Vanity Fair, June 2014.<\/p><\/div>\n

This sequence \u2014 from Capa to Tramz to Brenner \u2014 serves as a\u00a0perfect example of how what Norman Mailer dubbed “factoids” (which he defined as “facts which have no existence before appearing in a magazine or newspaper [or book]”) get introduced and disseminated, morphing variously along the way, perpetuated and amplified by lazy journalists and people with something to gain from their currency.<\/p>\n

Fish Story<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Robert<\/a>

Robert Capa, D-Day image captions, Contax 35mm Roll 2.<\/p><\/div>\n

Capa himself knew that three of those rolls had been used aboard the U.S.S. Chase<\/em> at dockside\u00a0in England and en route to Normandy;\u00a0he said so in his handwritten caption notes<\/a> for Morris that accompanied the films, who knew this as soon as he read those notes.\u00a0And Capa\u00a0knew he’d made all his Omaha Beach exposures\u00a0\u2014\u00a0those\u00a0on the fourth roll\u00a0\u2014\u00a0from the LCI, from waist-deep in the surf, and then from the edge of the beach, during the first few minutes of the battle.<\/p>\n

When he ran for that outgoing LCI, did\u00a0he have reason to believe that he had fulfilled his assignment, enough so\u00a0to give\u00a0LIFE<\/em>‘s readers what they expected \u2014 a front-row seat at the landing?\u00a0I have to answer no. A mere 11\u00a0exposures made in half an hour at the very beginning of the battle could not have guaranteed that he’d delivered the goods. However much I empathize, on a purely human level, with his compulsion to retreat from the maw of hell, I have to assess it as fundamentally unprofessional.<\/p>\n

\""Beachheads<\/a>

“Beachheads of Normandy,” LIFE magazine feature on D-Day with Robert Capa photos, June 19, 1944.<\/p><\/div>\n

In the\u00a0LIFE<\/em>\u00a0story published on June 19,\u00a01944, under the\u00a0headline\u00a0“Beachheads of Normandy: The Fateful Battle for Europe Is Joined by Sea and Air,” the text claimed that “As [Capa]\u00a0waded out to get aboard, his cameras were thoroughly soaked.” Hardly.<\/p>\n

According to Richard Whelan’s biography, “In his cable congratulating Capa for the best coverage of the invasion, [LIFE<\/em>\u00a0Picture Editor]\u00a0Wilson Hicks told the photographer that the lost pictures had been ruined by seawater that had seeped into his cameras. Capa did not learn the\u00a0truth\u00a0until he returned to London in July.”\u00a0But of course Capa \u2014 having reloaded those cameras immediately upon reaching the safety of the evacuation boat, he tells us \u2014 would have known immediately upon reading this cable that no seawater had entered his cameras to damage those films. (Click here<\/a> to view the\u00a0LIFE<\/em> story, which included 5 of Capa’s Omaha Beach images.)<\/p>\n

The Ones that Got Away<\/strong><\/p>\n

Without question, he also knew he’d\u00a0sent Morris only one roll of Omaha Beach exposures, with only 11 exposures on it.\u00a0“The little which got printed is nothing compared to the material which they got ruined,” Capa\u00a0wrote to his brother Cornell in New York City, according to Brenner.\u00a0Sadly, the evidence shows that this amounted to nothing more than a fish story about the ones that got away.<\/p>\n

Robert Capa unquestionably had the skills required to make astonishing images at Omaha Beach on D-Day. He presented himself with\u00a0his camera and lens at the historic setting from which he could have\u00a0derived such\u00a0images. But he pressed the shutter release\u00a0a mere 11 times; that’s all he\u00a0registered on his one roll of D-Day film. On this crucial occasion, the opportunity\u00a0of a lifetime, he failed himself, his picture editor, his publisher, his public, and history itself.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

(For an index of links to all posts in this series,\u00a0click here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

[Note: Subsequent\u00a0research by Rob McElroy<\/a>\u00a0revealed that all supposed examples of Capa’s “damaged” D-Day negatives published in the May 29, 2014\u00a0<\/em>TIME\u00a0video, such as the one above (*), were forgeries produced by Magnum in collusion with the International Center of Photography. While this renders irrelevant the above analysis of those frames, it does not\u00a0undermine my\u00a0broader<\/em><\/em>\u00a0challenge to the “melted emulsion” narrative. \u2014 A. D. C.]<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

John Morris will participate in\u00a0a conversation with Robert Pledge<\/a>, founder and director of Contact Press Images, at the\u00a0International Center of Photography on June 24, 2014. They’ll stream it, so you can\u00a0watch it\u00a0live online at\u00a0www.icp.org\/live<\/a>. Clicking on that link will enable you to submit a question in advance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Robert Capa unquestionably had the skills required to make astonishing images at Omaha Beach on D-Day. He presented himself with his camera and lens at the historic setting from which he could have derived such images. But he pressed the shutter release a mere 11 times; that’s all he registered on his one roll of D-Day film. On this crucial occasion, the opportunity of a lifetime, he failed himself, his picture editor, his publisher, his public, and history itself. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[788,15,945,946],"tags":[939,944,938,917,937,940],"class_list":["post-21251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-analog-photography-2","category-news-commentary","category-photo-history","category-photojournalism-2","tag-d-day","tag-dennis-banks","tag-john-morris","tag-life-magazine","tag-robert-capa","tag-time-life","odd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21251\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}