According to Allan Coleman, he had been questioning the orthodox regarding Capa’s D-Day pictures for some time, and then he received a communication from J. Ross Baughman. So impressed with Baughman’s idea was Coleman that he devoted two guest blog posts to it, and thus began a decade-long search for the truth. Along the way he was joined by others, including Charles Herrick, Rob McElroy, Tristan da Cunha, and a few others. Of these individuals, two stand out as particularly vituperous toward Capa and Morris: Coleman and Herrick.
Because Coleman envisions a vast conspiracy involving myriad people and institutions, which he calls, “The Capa Corsortium,” facetiously, I have referred to Allan Coleman and the various co-authors on his blog as the Coleman Clan, Clan Coleman or the Clan. It was just convenient.
A couple of the Clan are well-meaning, innocent bystanders. Rob McElroy made a brilliant observation about a Time Inc., documentary on Capa’s images, in which he noticed that their rendition of the “lost roll,” was actually faked. Of course, if you think about it, the lost roll is, well, lost. So, we don’t have pictures of it. But, setting that aside, the makers of this documentary (and I’m not going to out them, as Coleman has done, to smear them) have modified the film to indicate that portions were illustrations. Fair enough. Bad on them; good on them. Really good on McIlroy.
McIlroy also debunked the “emulsion slide” idea that I believe was first mentioned by Richard Whelan, Capa’s official biographer (weird that they never met). I’ll do a post later on both of these and provide a link.
Tristan Da Cunha also did some excellent work, proving the emulsion melt explanation to be false. He did a very detailed study and published it on his website. In this he also examined the effect of 5 minutes immersion of film in seawater, with results similar to my experiment where I immersed film for 20 minutes.
Both of these gentlemen were well-meaning and without any apparent animosity towards anyone. They are Clan members only by affiliation.
However, this statement by Clan member and Pulitzer Prize recipient, J. Ross Baughman – which precipitated the entire Coleman inquest – exemplifies the perspective of the Coleman Clan:
An egotistical dandy puts himself in the path of danger, but for the wrong reasons. He finds himself running behind his own reputation and ability to deliver. When all those about him are losing their heads (literally), he does, too (but only emotionally). When the pressure reaches a peak, he blows it technically. While there are compelling, powerful, historical reasons to buckle down and stick with it, he quits instead. Back home, he leaves his editor and biggest supporter hanging on deadline, and then lets someone else take the blame for his shortcomings. (32)
In one of his more restrained observations, Coleman called Capa a “habitual self-promoter with scant regard for the facts,” and Morris, “ethically and morally corrupt.” (6)
Herrick called Morris’ explanation of the dearth of images returning from his several photographers as, “disingenuously crafted to enhance his dramatic tale of waiting for Capa’s pictures to return from D-Day.” (page 54) He said, “Capa had made a career of standing aside, recording the agony and death of others for money and fame, without getting involved to aid the victims.” (33)
Herrick apparently does not understand that this is exactly what war photographers do. They are not there to help, run errands, hand out cigarettes, light your cigarette, fight, or do anything other than witness events to the world. That's pretty important in itself. The great, Sir Don McCullin, said that the war photographer is there, not to help out, but to show the world. It is critical for policy makers and taxpayers to see the truth of momentous events that require expenditure of blood and money, and in 1944, the best way to tell that story was with photographs.
There's an old joke about a photojournalist witnessing a man drowning, and her dilemma is whether to use a fast or slow shutter speed. There's some truth in that. Modern photojournalists immediately transmit images to their editors via satellite connections, so they can stay with the story. Photographers in 1944 did not have that luxury.
Herrick does not limit his disdain to Capa. He derided Bert Brandt, stating he, “merely rode to the beach on a landing craft.” Does he feel all the men who travelled 7 to 10 miles in darkness in a small, unstable, flat-bottomed boat, in high seas that were mined, during a storm, vomiting and defecating in their pants, to arrive at a battlefield defended by a heavily armed and determined enemy “merely rode to the beach on a landing craft?” That harrowing adventure seems like the very definition of bravery. That statement, and his persistent insinuation that Capa arrived under light fire, insults all the men who arrived on all the beaches that morning.
As to Capa’s motivations, only he knew the truth about that. It is unprofessional and uncouth to assign nefarious motivations to a dead man 80 years after an event, or to harass a grand old pioneer of picture editing, neither of whom can defend themselves, based on a hasty, desultory and incomplete analysis. The plethora of judgements, accusations and reprehensible comments made by the Coleman Clan gives me pause to consider their potential motivations. Coleman solicits donations through his website, the team has been recognized with awards, Herrick has published a book and aspires to be an historian. As of this writing, Back into Focus ranked 1,323,028 in book sales on Amazon.
It is important to acknowledge Charles Herrick's exhaustive research for his book, Back Into Focus, published by Casemate in December of 2024. I preordered a copy and read it as soon as it arrived.
Mr. Herrick attended the U.S. Military Academy and had a distinguished military career, including a combat tour in Panama. After retirement, he obtained an MBA and worked as a defense contractor.* I have corresponded with a few people about my project who do know Mr. Herrick, whom they call Chuck, and all have very nice things to say about him. I had a brief but cordial email exchange with him.
Mr. Herrick's research for his book appeared to be meticulous and detailed, but selective. His unfavorable opinion of Robert Capa was unambiguous from the outset. In the Forward, he called Capa a "partisan propagandist," and stated, "many of the events he related smack of hype, exaggeration or outright fabrication." Later, when dismissing photographic proof that Capa assisted with transferring wounded at sea, Herrick said on page 199,
This is hard to credit. Capa had made a career of standing aside, recording the agony and death of others for money and fame, without getting involved to aid the victims. It is a bit much to expect that he came so far out of character at this point.
Mr. Herrick questioned Capa’s character and his “moral and ethical shortcomings,” on page 295. On page 181, He referred to Capa's departure from the beach as an "undignified flight.” There are countless examples in his book for the curious reader.
In my opinion, these relentless, unnecessary jabs at Capa tarnish the entire book in an unscholarly way.
Not confining his opinions to Capa’s character alone, Mr. Herrick opined on Capa's photographic skill, stating in the Forward, "Capa's photographs are not especially technically good." He said, “as we search for explanations for Capa’s enduring fame, we can safely rule out technical merit,” page 301. He criticized Capa for photographing men on the beach, rather than turning his camera toward German guns, apparently not realizing that photojournalists try to capture the humanistic element of war, not tourist shots of gun emplacements.
Both Coleman and Herrick cite many anecdotes from Capa, or people who knew Capa, as lacking credibility, as if events in decades past are remembered and shared with precision. I got the feeling reading the blog posts and Back Into Focus, that they thought Capa should have been under oath his entire life, as if every word were being transcribed for a deposition at his future inquest by the Coleman Clan.
Yet, the Clan have a tendency to either omit or dismiss historical accounts that did not comport with their overall theme. They dismissed the portions of William M. Kays' highly detailed account of the landings that had anything to do with Capa. After the war, Captain Kays became dean of the Stanford University School of Engineering and was instrumental in developing what would become Silicon Valley (See blog post 11, Depth Charge, for a detailed description).
The Clan accept Richard Whelan's accounts (Capa's biographer) when they support their arguments, but dismissed him as an "adoring biographer" and "staunch defender" when they didn't.
The Clan consistently dismissed multiple eyewitness accounts that the men landing at the same time and location as Capa were under intense fire, and Herrick described Capa's account as a, "sexed-up version of the narrative that the landing craft was under fire as it unloaded the troops." p181 The New York Times correspondent, Don Whitehead, who also landed on Easy Red, probably a little later than Capa, described his experience,
When we landed behind the assault troops the enemy still was pouring a heavy machine-gun mortar and artillery fire into the boats as they drove ashore and had our troops pinned behind a gravel bank just above the water's edge. Shells burst on all sides of us, some so close they threw black water and dirt over us in showers. They smacked into water around the boats, but in all the shelling I saw only one boat hit and she pulled out under her own power.**
This seasoned, veteran war correspondent, who twice received the Pulitzer Prize and was awarded the Medal of Freedom, later said, "So many guys were getting killed that I stopped being afraid. I was resigned to being killed, too."***
Another prominent correspondent, Jack Thompson, said, “Down came our landing ramp. Machine-gun bullets flayed the water just ahead of Taylor, first to jump off into the chest-deep water. I followed, instinctively shielding my face with my prized lightweight portable typewriter, a Swiss-made Hermes.” ****
According to Coleman and Herrick, Kays, Whitehead and Thompson just didn’t remember things correctly, even though all three wrote their accounts contemporaneously.
I don't want to belabor this point too much; the discerning reader will find many examples of anti-Capa prejudice in Coleman’s blog and Herrick's book. My criticism is with their unnecessarily vituperous criticism of two men based on specious arguments and proofs. Kind of like the telephoto lens experiment I describe in the next post, Why Me. To me, it makes them look impertinent and foolish.
I hope that donations to Nearby Café and book sales of Back Into Focus skyrocket as a result of this analysis. If my little blog brings attention to their work, that would be great, because the more people who see it can decide for themselves where the truth lies.
* https://porpoise-flatworm-wtha.squarespace.com/about
** https://www.naplesnews.com/story/news/2019/06/06/ap-there-allied-troops-land-normandy-d-day/1330114001/
*** https://apnews.com/article/dday-wwii-france-normandy-media-fd4cb6c41e48b2624c3bb85b024bb332
**** https://ww2ondeadline.com/2021/08/17/jack-thompson-our-favorite-war-correspondent/comment-page-1/