robert capa

Robert Capa Focus Hocus-Pocus – Depth Charge

I really did not intend to leave you with a cliffhanger then go to commercial break, but I just read my last post about Capa making it to the beach and I realized that I have not explained to you, dear Reader, why I believe there is good evidence that he did, and why the Coleman Bros vehemently deny it.  Ah, the pitfalls of blogging.  The Darkroom post will come tomorrow, as promised, but in the meantime here’s a not-so-quick explanation that will make my interpretation of the darkroom “mishap” more apparent.

It all has to do with waves, tides and eyewitnesses.

Waves

Charles Herrick has been on the vanguard of proving that Capa arrived at Easy Red much later than he claimed, 0820, rather than 0740.  Most of his arguments that I discuss here are presented in Chapter 10 of his book.

Herrick’s first proof that Capa arrived around 0820 involved Landing Tables for the 16th Regimental Combat Team, which showed a slot for a "press photographer" in the commander's vessel (Colonel Taylor), which was a LCM (landing craft mechanized).  This was in the 13th wave, arriving along with one other vessel, a LCVP that contained the medical team, scheduled to arrive at 0805.  Actual arrival time was between 0813 and 0824. 

Capa had mentioned possibly going in with Company B of the 11th wave overall, second wave from the Chase, scheduled to arrive at 0750, but Herrick refutes this by saying that the Landing Tables were immutable.  It was not possible to change the order once the operation was underway.  I refer the reader to Herrick’s account to save space here, but his research on that seemed solid to me… at first glance.

Yet, Herrick also claims that Taylor switched boats at the last minute with the medical team.  He chose to take his command crew on the LCVP, rather than the LCM, which means that the manifest was not immutable.  We don't know if the entire manifest of both vessels swapped, or part of them.  The capacity of an LCM was up to 100 troops, plus a crew of 4 to 6.  The capacity of a LCVP was only 36 passengers, plus crew.  These boats were packed tightly with men and equipment.  Herrick omitted these capacity figures in his analysis. 

Likely, there was not enough room for Capa on the smaller LCVP.  We know from Herrick that Capa did switch boats, so it is conceivable that he switched waves.  It seems reasonable that if Capa wanted to arrive at the beach earlier, had hoped for E Company but was stuck on a different ship, he would have taken this opportunity to jump in a LCVP with B Company. Herrick’s conclusive proof that Capa went in with Taylor falls apart with this knowledge and is refuted by an eyewitness (see below).  Therefore, his arrival time on the beach becomes less certain.

There’s more…

Herick said that Capa left the Chase too late to get to the beach when he claimed.  According to the U.S. Coast Guard, the branch that operated the landing craft, "The attack transport Samuel Chase, part of Task Group 124.3, arrived in the transport area 10 miles off Normandy's shore and anchored on the morning of June 6 at 3:15.  The ship began embarking troops at 5:30 a.m.  The first waves [there’s that word again] got underway at 5:36 a.m. and the last wave launched a little after 6 a.m."(35)  Therefore, according to the Coast Guard, Capa must have left at or before 0600, which meant he could have been at the beach by 0740.

Just like bombers when they take off, these smaller boats circled in the water so that they could leave in a little armada, rather than dribbling in individually.  Note the Coast Guard used the term, "wave," to mean  the successive order of landing craft from this attack transport, not the overall Normandy invasion.  The second wave from the Chase would be Company B, according to the U.S. Coast Guard, the company that Capa said he rode with. So, Clan Coleman's dismissal of Capa's claim to have been in the second wave appears to be more of a semantic argument than anything else.  

Tides

A second method Herrick used to determine Capa's arrival time involved a military WRM equation, used to determine distance to an object. This is usually determined using a graduated reticle on an optical sight. Herrick used pictures.  He compared Capa's negative 32 to a famous photograph made by Chief Photographer's Mate Robert F. Sargent commonly called, Into the Jaws of Death.  Both photographs were taken from a LCVP, so at first glance this seems like a reasonable comparison to make.  Sargent's LCVP arrived with Company E around 0740, according to the National Coast Guard Museum.(35)

Robert Sargent, Into the Jaws of Death


Herrick measured the vertical distance on these pictures from the top of an embankment to the bottom of a strip of shale.  Never mind that these pictures were not taken at the same section of beach, which means we must assume the configuration of these landmarks was very similar in different locations, but the two photographs were made from different heights above the water.  He said that the different widths of the landmarks proved that Capa was closer, which meant he came in much later.

But, Capa made his photograph from the bow of the LCVP after the men disembarked, Sargent was standing toward the heavier stern, so he would have been lower than Capa.  With Capa’s higher vantage point, the landmarks in his pictures analyzed by Herrick would naturally have been wider (again, assuming the beach where Capa landed was nearly identical to where Sargent landed).  Therefore, Herrick’s estimation does not mean that Capa was closer, and by extension, later than Sargent.

Beyond that, Capa and Sargent used entirely different optical systems.  Capa used his 35mm Contax with a 50mm lens.  Sargent used a large format 4x5 inch camera, probably a modified Graflex Speedmatic, but with an unknown lens, likely either a 135mm or 150mm lens.  These two camera and lens combinations will give greatly different perspectives, object dimensions and images that are not comparable.  Apples and oranges.

After explaining with math equations how he derived his conclusion of Capa’s later arrival based on the arguments above, Herrick admitted, "At best, we can only use the waterline as a very crude estimate..." 

Herrick used similar logic when examining the hedgehogs in Capa’s picture vs. Sargent’s.  Herrick points out the hedgehogs in Capa's Negative 32 are in deeper water than the hedgehogs in Sargent's picture, indicating again that the tide had risen significantly between the two pictures, therefore Capa could not have been there at 0740. 

But when Capa entered the water he photographed the hedgehogs and log ramps close-up.  Capa tells us, in negatives 34, 35, 36 and 38, that the hedgehogs and log ramps are sitting on the sand not covered by water, and the men are lying on their bellies on sand, not in water.  Using Herrick's reasoning, this would imply that he was there earlier than Sargent.  

Above is Negative 35, showing the men lying on sand. Herrick cherry picked a negative that showed men up to their waist in water, explaining the tide had raised the water level, proving Capa arrived later. But he knew those men were standing in a runnel, and that the picture did not accurately depict the level of the tide. The above picture does, and strongly suggests a much earlier time than Herrick claims.


The higher water in Capa’s negative 32 of the beach is not because of a rising tide, but because of a runnel, or deep channel, running parallel to the beach. There are multiple accounts of men beaching on sand, then wading through deep water the closer they got to shore, because of these runnels.  Herrick knew this, because he talks about runnels in his book.

Herrick used specious arguments to support his theory that Capa’s arrival was more consistent with an 0830 timeframe than a 0740 timeframe.  But the argument falls apart upon closer analysis.

After a lengthy discussion regarding these methods, Herrick concluded, "I'll leave it to the reader to decide." 

Eyewitnesses

Three eyewitnesses put Capa on the beach before 0820, closer to 0740.

Sam Fuller's account may be the most disputed.  I have, or will, discuss parts of it elsewhere, so I won’t spend any time on it here. 

Captain Charles Hangsterfer was with the 1st Battalion of the 16th Infantry, that included A, B, C and D Companies.  He landed on Easy Red at 0700, made his way to the beach and then further up to the bluff and paused for a break.  He then went back to the beach to recover men from his company, when he saw, "Bob Capa, a combat photographer for a magazine taking pictures of the carnage.  He was behind one of the self-propelled tanks that had been knocked out."  Herrick quoted him as saying,

He was a civilian, he was paid to take pictures and he was behind this — one of these DD tanks that was knocked out. There were three of them out of a hundred, these DD tanks I started to tell you about, these tanks that were supposed to be our artillery support, and three of them got to shore out of a hundred and he was behind one of them, knocked out [inaudible] on the beach … taking pictures and I waved to him. I had seen him over in North Africa and he knew who I was and he took a picture of me, but the poor guy took all these pictures and none of them turned out … Somebody goofed up in the development of them and they never turned out. So I never had a picture of me on the beach there looking for my troopers... (36)

In his blog post #25, Coleman estimated that Hangsterfer saw Capa on the beach between 0735 and 0750, an estimate with which I agree. However, after Herrick posted his estimates to Coleman’s blog, Coleman changed his time estimates and attributed Hangsterfer’s memory to stolen or “borrowed glamor.” As we just saw, Herrick’s estimates are based on poor reasoning, in my opinion. Coleman was right initially, which supports my contention that Capa switched to B Company and did not go in with Colonel Thompson.

The third and best source was Lieutenant William Kays, who was a liason officer for the commander, Major Edmund Driscoll, First Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment.  His LCVP landed on Easy Red at 0730.   

Capa’s photograph of William Kays (on left with glasses) in a planning session the night before the invasion on board the USS Chase. Kays admitted that he inserted himself in this picture by the famous Life photographer.

Kays confirmed that the landing craft circled after they were launched, until all boats were in the water, "so we could arrive at the beach at the same time."  Kays described standing at the rear of the LCVP with his radio operator and a runner, and "I found myself standing in front of the famous Life magazine photographer Robert Capa," at the right rear of the boat.

Upon seeing explosions on the beach, Kays recalled Capa saying, "That must be the beach engineers blowing up the obstacles."  Kays described shallow water swirling around the obstacles and seeing the bodies of men lying at water's edge.

Kays described the boat being hit by machine gun fire, causing his radio operator, Doyle, to panic.  Two soldiers removed the radio from his back.  Kays indicated that Capa's photos depict him and other men disembarking, including Doyle and another soldier carrying the radio to shore.(37) The heavy resistance was confirmed by B Company’s Action Report.*

On June 25, 1944, Kays wrote that once in the water, he ran for a tank 50 yards toward shore amidst a "hail of M.G. [machine gun] fire all around us," from somewhere to his right front. Once sheltered behind it, he looked around and saw Capa shooting pictures from behind another tank.  Kays stated in his letter that this was the last time he saw Capa, did not see him ashore and speculated that he left the area on a returning boat.

This account is detailed and very clear in Kays’s book, Letters from a Soldier.**  Kays went on after the war to become the Dean of Engineering at Stanford University and pivotal in the development of Silicon Valley, hardly an unreliable participant or witness.

Of course, Coleman and Herrick dismiss this account.  A reader of Coleman's blog, who helped Kays write an article about his book, brought the account to Colemans attention,(38) but Coleman simply told him that he didn’t know what he was talking about, and referred him to Herrick's analysis of Kays' story.(39)

Another blog reader, Maureen Doyle Sullivan, the daughter of Lenny Doyle (Kays' radio operator) confirmed the story told by Kays, and stated that her father was one of the soldiers laying in the sand by a hedgehog in a Capa picture.  Coleman condescendingly dismissed Ms. Sullivan’s claims as well, and referred her to Herrick's analysis.

So, what is Herrick's analysis of Kays' testimony?  Herrick acknowledges that Kays' story was based on letters he wrote contemporaneously, so they should be accurate, but states that the letters do not sound "authentic."  Further evidence of Kays' mendacity, according to Herrick, is that Kays referred to Capa as a "Life photographer," which Herrick felt sounded awkward, and that "it would have sounded much more natural if Kays had simply said "'A photographer from Life was next to me in the boat,' omitting the name, since Capa's name recognition was not really widespread at that point." [even though Picture Post magazine had referred to Capa as "the world's greatest war photographer,” Capa had been widely published for years, and they had spent several days together on the Chase, where Kays doubtless learned of Capa's reputation. Herrick himself stated that men on the boat knew that Capa was “world renown.” page 189]  Herrick opined that Kays' letters lacked "the ring of authenticity for a letter written in June 1944."

Just to be clear, Herrick claims that syntax in a letter home in 1944, from a weary soldier in an active combat zone, who just had survived hell, is evidence that Kays exaggerated and embellished his story.

But to really make his point, Herrick refutes Kays' daughter and Kays' contemporaneous account by saying there was no tank in the location Kays described.  The problem with this argument is that Kays did not describe his location in his letters or his memoir.  He just said he was by a tank, but not which tank. Herrick assumes it is the center tank in Negative 32, but it could have been any tank.   

Herrick then said, "Furthermore, Capa stopped first to shelter behind a 'hedgehog' obstacle for an undetermined period of time, then moved to the shelter of tank dozer 10."  But, Capa’s pictures proved this statement false in the second blog post.

That’s not all…

Not giving up, Herrick then refers again to the water level in Sargent's picture vs. Capa's picture as conclusive proof of the Stanford dean's mendacity, which I have already shown to be an specious comparison.  Herrick confidently proclaims, "This definitively disproves Kays's assertion that Capa rode in on the same landing craft with him and the commander of the 1st Battalion."

In fact, as I have shown in this lengthy and laboriously detailed post, Herrick proved none of his assertions.  Thus, the Clan’s argument that Capa was not in the water long enough to have gone to the beach to shoot his second roll of film falls flat on its face.

Thank you for your patience, but I think you probably now know why I had to go into so much detail. Now, as promised, on to the Darkroom Mishap.



*https://www.americandday.org/Documents/1st_ID-16th_IR-1st_Bn-B_Company-Account.html

** William M. Kays, Letters from a Soldier: A Memoir of World War II. Create Space. 2010.

35.    https://warchronicle.com/16th-infantry-situation-on-d-day/

36.    https://www.nearbycafe.com/artandphoto/photocritic/2015/08/02/alternate-history-robert-capa-on-d-day-25/

37.    https://www.nearbycafe.com/artandphoto/photocritic/2015/08/02/alternate-history-robert-capa-on-d-day-25/

38.    https://www.nearbycafe.com/artandphoto/photocritic/2019/02/12/alternate-history-robert-capa-on-d-day-40a/

39.    https://www.nearbycafe.com/artandphoto/photocritic/2019/05/20/guest-post-27-charles-herrick-on-capas-d-day-i/

 

Robert Capa Focus Hocus-Pocus - Introduction

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The authenticity of Robert Capa’s famous, daring photographs of the invasion of Omaha Beach on D-Day, June 6, 1944, recently has come under fire. The new story of the pictures sounds pretty convincing at first blush, however a deeper analysis of the pictures, with some new experiments, lends credence to the original story and discovers new information about the event. Although Capa is no longer here to defend himself, I interrogated his pictures, allowing him to speak to us from the grave. Curious? First, I’ll introduce the story, the criticisms, and I’ll continue on from there in subsequent posts.

Robert Capa, photographer and location unknown.

Robert Capa (10/22/1913 – 5/25/54), a Hungarian by birth, named Endre Friedmann, moved to Berlin as a young man to study political science in university, and he also learned photography. However, as a Jew, he felt uncomfortable living in Germany in the 1930’s, so he moved to Paris. There he met Gerda Taro, who became his partner and lover. Both photographers, they covered the Spanish Civil War and published their photographs together under the pseudonym, Robert Capa.

When Taro was killed in 1937 in Spain, Endre took the name, Robert Capa, and continued to work. In 1938, Picture Post declared him, “The Greatest War-Photographer in the World,” when they published 26 of his photographs from that war. He then covered the Japanese invasion of China before moving to New York. From there he covered the Africa campaign and the conquest of Sicily and Italy.

He is probably best known for his photographs of the D-Day invasion of Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944. Two of these photographs have become iconic. He continued to cover World War II until VE Day on June 8, 1945. He was killed by a landmine nine years later while covering the war in Indochina.

This series of blog posts deals with only one day of his career, a day that recently has become very controversial. Capa wrote about his experience on the Easy Red sector of Omaha Beach three years later in his memoir, Slightly Out of Focus. He chose the title for several reasons, one of which was his technique of using blurry images to impart a dynamic quality to his pictures, but it was also a metaphor. On the book jacket, he admitted that it was difficult to write the truth and that he allowed himself “to go sometimes slightly beyond and slightly this side of it. All events and persons in this book are accidental and have something to do with the truth.”

Presumably, Capa spiced up this memoir in hopes of it turning into a screenplay. That never happened, and most people who read it take his comment into account. Capa’s D-Day story goes like this: He said he was given options of which group to go in with on D-Day. He wanted to go early, so he chose Easy Company on the first wave. He said he took pictures from the landing craft of men going ashore, and then he said that was sufficient for him, implying he had what he needed. About that time the boatswain kicked him off the ramp because they wanted to get out of there.

He found himself in the water, made for an obstacle to protect him from ordinance coming his way, and started taking pictures. He then jumped to a tank located closer to the shoreline, and from there he made it to shore. Once on shore he took out his second camera and took an entire roll of pictures. When he started to change out the film from that camera he described having a panic attack. He sprang up and, with both cameras held over his head, he waded out to a ship that had just off-loaded some medics. From there, he went to his mother ship and then to Weymouth, England, where he sent his pictures by courier to the offices of Life magazine in London. He then headed back to Normandy to keep photographing.

Critics question the precise time he arrived Easy Red and with whom. They question how long he stayed there. They question exactly how many pictures he took there. They say that he went in late, after the action had died down; that he did not plan to get off his landing craft; that his pictures don’t show heroic men under fire, but rather a command unit that landed under relatively quiet conditions; that he freaked out and made for the first boat that could take him out of there.

But that’s not all to the story. Once the film finally arrived at the Life office, about 36 hours after he took the pictures, they were received by John Morris, the picture editor. Morris told the darkroom staff to develop the film and make it snappy, because they had a hard deadline looming if they wanted to make the next issue of Life magazine. The negatives needed to be developed, edited, couriered to the airport, flown to Scotland, then to Washington and New York. At first, Morris received word from the darkroom that the pictures looked “fabulous.” A short while later, a young “darkroom lad” named Dennis Banks, told the horrified Morris that the negatives were ruined. In his haste to dry them, he had put a heater in the drying cabinet and turned up the heat higher than normal. He said this melted the emulsion. All of the precious images from those two rolls of film were gone, except for the magnificent last 10 (or 11) on the first roll, the ones Capa made when he first arrived at Easy Red. Morris made the deadline, the pictures were published, and the world got a glimpse of what it looked like that morning on Omaha Beach.

The same critics who are skeptical of Capa’s activities on D-Day question this story, too. First of all, why did Morris entrust these precious negatives to an inexperienced, 15-year-old “darkroom lad?” Secondly, does heat cause emulsion to melt? They did the experiment; they processed some exposed black and white film and dried it in a very hot drying cabinet. It came out fine. No melting. Based on this, and some other nuances I will discuss in subsequent posts, these critics declared that, not only did Capa fabricate large portions of his experience on Easy Red, but he and Morris concocted this darkroom “mishap myth” to cover for Capa’s lackluster performance. Rather than a failure it made them both look heroic. Morris continued to tell this story after Capa’s death, including in a book, in various documentaries and televised interviews. It has become a legend in photojournalism.

Capa’s reputation of heroism is so enduring that the Overseas Press Club annually awards an intrepid photographer working in a conflict zone the Robert Capa Gold Medal for “exceptional courage and enterprise.” Capa’s pictures from that day have become iconic. Morris went on to have a storied career as a picture editor at many magazines and he was Executive Director for years at Magnum Photos, the renowned photo agency created by Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and others in 1947.

In 2014, the Pulitzer Prize recipient, J. Ross Baughmam, published an article on Allan D. Coleman’s website, Nearby Café, questioning the above narrative. This launched an investigation that continues to this day and has attracted other contributors, such as Charles Herrick, Rob McElroy, Tristan Da Cunha, and others. Herrick wrote a book covering their analysis, Back Into Focus. This group has made many fine and interesting discoveries, which I will review in this blog. But their ultimate conclusions are flawed, in my opinion, and I will show those flaws in the following blog posts.

My purpose in doing this is to provide a different interpretation of the events some 81 years ago, to counterbalance the accusations and downright sneers promulgated by Coleman and his colleagues. I have no connection to Capa, Morris or Magnum. I belong to a number of photography organizations, just to support them, including the International Center of Photography (ICP). About all I get out of it is a newsletter, so I don’t view that as a conflict of interest. The ICP is one of the organizations that Coleman and his colleagues impune as part of this vast conspiracy. He refers to the people and organizations that have supposedly promulgated these lies for decades as the “Capa Consortium.”

Since the phrase, “Coleman and his colleagues,” is somewhat unwieldy, I have taken inspiration from Coleman’s, “Capa Consortium,” to refer to this group as the Coleman Clan, or simply, the Clan. When I use these terms I may be referring to the entire group, or possibly just two or more contributors.

If you read on, you will see that the discussion can get pretty technical. It references pictures and diagrams that I will include embedded in each post. If you have an interest in Robert Capa or John Morris, photojournalism, documentary photography, World War II, D-Day, Omaha Beach, Easy Red sector, or just a general interest, I promise you will find this fascinating. Have fun and please feel free to comment. I’m happy to learn where I may be wrong and I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Below this is a list of the references that I use in the blog posts. Above photograph was obtained from the Britannica website without attribution. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Robert-Capa

1.    https://www.nearbycafe.com/artandphoto/photocritic/major-stories/major-series-2014/robert-capa-on-d-day/

2.    Herrick, S. (2024) Back in Focus: The Real Story of Robert Capa’s D-Day, Casemate Publishers.

3.    Wertenbaker, C.  (1944) Invasion!  D. Appleton-Century, Co.

4.    Capa, R. Slightly out of Focus.  New York:  The Modern Library, 2001.  All quotations from this book come from pages 140-151

5.    https://www.nearbycafe.com/artandphoto/photocritic/2024/07/24/alternate-history-robert-capa-on-d-day-54b/

6.    https://www.nearbycafe.com/artandphoto/photocritic/2016/12/07/alternate-history-robert-capa-and-john-morris-a/

7.    https://www.nearbycafe.com/artandphoto/photocritic/2014/06/29/alternate-history-robert-capa-on-d-day-8/

8.    https://overseaspressclubofamerica.submittable.com/submit

9.    https://www.nearbycafe.com/artandphoto/photocritic/2015/05/17/guest-post-16-rob-mcelroy-on-robert-capa-2-a/

10. Ambrose, S. (1995) D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of WWII.  Touchstone/Simon & Schuster.

11. https://www.liquisearch.com/czech_hedgehog/technical_details

12. Herrick, pp. 168-9

13. ibid., p. 173

14. ibid., p. 174

15. Ambrose, p. 320

16. https://explore.britannica.com/study/omaha-beach-typical-cross-section-and-obstacles

17. Wertenbaker, pp. 42-3

18. https://www.nearbycafe.com/artandphoto/photocritic/2014/06/06/guest-post-11-j-ross-baughman-on-robert-capa/

19. Ambrose, p. 307

20. ibid., p. 339

21. Herrick, p.108

22. https://warchronicle.com/16th-infantry-situation-on-d-day/

23. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/the-man-who-took-omaha-beach-107509/

24. https://valor.militarytimes.com/recipient/recipient-22728/recipient-22728-2dsc-1/

25. Ambrose, p. 395

26. https://marathonhandbook.com/average-human-sprint-speed/

27. https://www.nearbycafe.com/artandphoto/photocritic/2015/02/12/alternate-history-robert-capa-on-d-day-21/

28. https://tdacunha.com/robert-capa/

29. Herrick, p. 245

30. https://www.nearbycafe.com/artandphoto/photocritic/2019/06/06/guest-post-28-charles-herrick-on-capas-d-day-j/

31. Herrick, p. 269

32. https://www.nearbycafe.com/artandphoto/photocritic/2014/06/08/guest-post-11-j-ross-baughman-on-robert-capa-b/

33. Herrick, p. 199

34. https://www.nearbycafe.com/artandphoto/photocritic/2022/02/08/alternate-history-robert-capa-on-d-day-51/

35. https://warchronicle.com/16th-infantry-situation-on-d-day/

36. https://www.nearbycafe.com/artandphoto/photocritic/2015/08/02/alternate-history-robert-capa-on-d-day-25/

37. https://www.nearbycafe.com/artandphoto/photocritic/2015/08/02/alternate-history-robert-capa-on-d-day-25/

38. https://www.nearbycafe.com/artandphoto/photocritic/2019/02/12/alternate-history-robert-capa-on-d-day-40a/

39. https://www.nearbycafe.com/artandphoto/photocritic/2019/05/20/guest-post-27-charles-herrick-on-capas-d-day-i/