Robert Capa Focus Hocus-Pocus – Why Me?

A lot of people, including friends and family, have asked about my motivation to do this project, and to post it publicly.  It’s kind of a long answer.

I am 70 years old, and have had a life-long love for photography.  I love great photography, I love to make photographs.  I am particularly drawn toward the great documentary and humanistic photographers of the Twentieth Century, and the rise of photojournalism.  It started when I was 13-years old looking at Life and National Geographic magazines, Steichen’s Family of Man, and other publications.  I am very familiar with the great photographers of that era, and this influence probably comes through in my own pictures.

So, whenever I see an article, documentary, video, blog post, YouTube, Instagram or facebook post, announcement, email, etc., about one of these photographers or that theme, I immediately investigate it.  I enjoyed Ben Stiller’s, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, and the more recent movies, Minimata (about W. Eugene Smith) and Lee (about Lee Miller).

A little over a year ago, early 2024, I saw a PetaPixel post about A.D. Coleman’s explanation of Robert Capa’s D-Day pictures, and the story of their survival.  Naturally, I took the click bait, and read the article, which immediately took me to Coleman’s website and blog.  I devoured it like I would devour a season of Game of Thrones.  And I was just as blown away. 

The revelations, the new information, the clever investigations – all captivated me.  I preordered Charles Herrick’s book and devoured it immediately when I received it.  This was even more detailed and thorough and clever.  He used an artillery mathematical formula to prove the exact time that Capa arrived at Easy Red.  Phenomenal! 

While I found the entire story so deeply fascinating, it also deeply troubled me.  One aspect of the work that really did not sit right was the rhetoric they used when referring to Capa and Morris.  One friend who is prominent in the photojournalism world observed that it was as if Coleman and Herrick had a vendetta against Capa and Morris.  I’ve given examples elsewhere in this blog.

That was disturbing, but not enough for me to do experiments, learn how to create a blog and everything else that went into this project.  

I was incredulous when I saw a flaw in their work that was painfully obvious.  They asked Tristan da Cunha, who planned a trip to Normandy, to determine if he could observe and take a discernable picture from the beach of a figure standing on the bluff 100 feet above where Capa apocryphally stood, according to them.  The reason for this involves a statement by filmmaker Sam Fuller, who was on Omaha Beach that morning, that Capa did just that.  Coleman called this a “factoid,” which he attributed to Normal Mailer, meaning a whole cloth lie used to manipulate the public.

Mr. da Cunha did the experiment with his Olympus OM-1 film camera with 135mm lens with a “combination of enthusiasm, methodological rigor, attention to detail and good humor.”  Da Cunha concluded that, the picture could be made, but details would be indistinct and the picture probably would not be publishable.  His own images with high resolution digital camera and zoom lens at 135mm show only a tiny figure. The pictures taken with film were much less distinct.

These results greatly pleased the Clan, with Coleman gleefully concluding it was an “exemplary contribution to the forensic analysis of photographic issues.”

The only problem with this experiment is that da Cunha used a modern single lens reflex camera, so he looked through the 135mm lens. His view was magnified.

Capa used a rangefinder, which means that his view was through the separate, optical viewfinder of the camera, not through the lens.  The optical viewfinder has a field-of-view wider than a normal lens, more like a 35mm wide angle lens, regardless of which lens was attached to the camera.  Less detail. Even with no lens, he would have the same view.  There is no way that he could have seen a magnified view of anything or anyone.

So, this was an apples and oranges experiment that proved absolutely nothing.  Not to disparage da Cunha – his work is detailed – it just lacks “methodological rigor.”

Their pride in this falacious experiment was so great that I wondered if some of their other arguments also were lacking.  So, I decided to decipher Herrick’s proof that Capa arrived on Omaha Beach at 0820.  I posted my analysis of his rationale in blog post 11, Depth Charge.  If you haven’t read it, I believe it debunks just about everything Herrick had to say on this matter.  At the least, it renders his “conclusive” evidence, very weak.

It doesn’t make me proud to say that.  I was appalled, frankly.  But when I realized that many of their arguments were specious, and that I had originally fallen for them, I decided to analyze every claim they made.  And I found more evidence of incomplete, poor thinking.

I might not have written this blog, however, were it not for a personal quirk of mine.  Everyone has their buttons, and my biggest button, that lives right square in the middle of my chest, is when a bully picks on the little guy.  In this case, it was a clan of bullies picking on a dead man and a 97-year old soon-to-be-dead man.

Criticism is fine.  Criticism is good.  I welcome criticism.  In medicine, when we get together in committee meetings, we are ruthless with each other.  It’s an essential element to providing quality of care because it leads to the truth.  I wasn’t upset that the Clan were criticizing Capa and Morris, dissecting their story, revealing the flaws.  Those are important historically.  It was the ugly, disparaging way in which they went about it.  Rude, name-calling, condescending, insulting.  These are not just my words.  I’ve met many people who feel the same way.  It seemed unprofessional and pointless.

That is what fueled my passion.  I started to see their theory creeping into other outlets.  Tatiana Hopper, in her excellent YouTube channel, mentioned Coleman and others who challenged the orthodoxy.  Others started to temper their opinions of Capa and Morris with caveats that their story might be fictitious.

Even John Morris himself began to back off of some of his claims.  Coleman and I exchanged emails about this.  He maintains that his work finally caught John Morris with his pants down and made him begin to admit that he had been lying for seven decades.  I see it differently.  As I wrote to Coleman, “I believe that was because of relentless pursuit by you.  Any centenarian would question his own mind under that kind of pressure: ethics complaints, accusations of fraud, blog posts questioning his honesty.  That’s some pretty heavy stuff you threw at him.  Pity.”  These were distant events.  Even at 70, I find myself mis-recalling early events in my life that I have recounted many times.

So, that’s the thing in a nutshell.  If the Clan had been more civil in their public writings and presentations, I would not have started this project because I would not have been so irritated as to look deeper.  Most people I have approached with this project agree.  That includes Pulitzer Prize recipients, National Geographic staff photographers, museum and gallery curators, working photojournalists and professional historians. 

Thank you for your continued interest.

Robert Capa Focus Hocus-Pocus – The Clan

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/

Robert Capa Focus Hocus-Pocus – START HERE

This post is the CliffsNotes® version of all the remaining posts. If you want to go down the rabbit hole on any particular topic, just click on the link. If you just read this, it will tell you all you need to know.

The Orthodox

Robert Capa was born in Hungary in 1913 and died in Indochina in 1954. He became one of the greatest photographers of the Twentieth Century and was known at one point as “The Greatest War-Photographer in the World.”

Arguably, he made his best known photographs on D-Day, June 6, 1944 on the Easy Red sector of Omaha Beach, the section with the highest casualty rate of the entire invasion that day, roughly 3,000 of the 5,000 total on five beaches. Nearly 140,000 allied troops landed in total.

Capa said he wanted to go in with the very first wave, but the evidence shows that he went in about an hour after the initial assault troops, when the beach was still hot with withering machine-gun fire, artillery and mortar rounds from a fortified and determined enemy. Field Marshall Rommel had hardened this part of the Normandy coast to repel an invasion by the Allies.

He probably did not intend to disembark from his landing craft, an LCVP, from the USS Chase. His job that day was not to go inland and fight. His job was to get pictures of the invasion and return them to the Life magazine offices in London as soon as possible. The Life European picture editor, John Morris, needed to make an absolute deadline for publication in the next issue of the magazine. But first the film had to be processed and cleared by censors.

Robert Capa’s Negative 29, depicting soldiers from the 16th Regimental Combat Team disembarking at Easy Red sector on Omaha Beach, June 6, 1944.

As Capa stood on the ramp of his LCVP, taking pictures of men wading through the water, the boatswain suddenly kicked him in the backside so the ramp could be raised and the boat withdrawn. Capa found himself in the water.

AI-generated image of Robert Capa being kicked off an LCVP. I couldn’t seem to train the software to show an LCVP.

The sequence of events for the next 60 to 90 minutes is not clear. Capa wrote an admittedly embellished account of his experience. He said he moved between various objects in the water, making his way toward shore and photographing the men trying to get to the beach. Once on the beach, he exposed a second roll of film in his second camera, for a total of two rolls on Easy Red.

As he started to change out his film in that camera, among the machine-gun fire and the mortar explosions, among grotesquely mangled human remains and screaming men, panic paralyzed him. He looked out to sea, saw a newly arrived landing craft, got up and ran for it, holding his cameras over his head to prevent them from getting wet. A sailor on that ship saw him coming toward them. Captains were forbidden to pick up any men, but since he was a civilian correspondent, they allowed him to board.

He ultimately made his way back to the English port of Weymouth where he handed his film to a courier, who took it to London. His job thus finished, Capa changed clothes and boarded another vessel headed for Normandy, where he followed the troops in to Paris.

In London, the film had to be handled by military censors before it was delivered to the Life offices where Morris set his staff to work quickly so that he could make his deadline. He received a message from the darkroom that the pictures were “fabulous,” but a short while later an adolescent darkroom assistant, Dennis Banks, told Morris that he had ruined the film by heating the drying cabinet too high. he said the heat caused the emulsion to melt, destroying any images it might have contained.

Morris was mortified at the “grey mud” appearance of the ruined roll, but also relieved that some of the images on the end of the first roll remained. The exact number of images is either 10 or 11, and one of those is missing, negative 37. That’s the Face in the Surf image at the top of this post. Morris doesn’t clearly recall what happened to the second ruined roll, so it has become known as the “lost roll.” The surviving pictures have become known as “The Magnificent Eleven,” (even though it’s probably just ten).

That is the story that Robert Capa and John Morris recounted many times over many decades.

Robert Capa’s surviving pictures from D-Day, June 6, 1944.

Enter Allan Coleman

In 2014, the photo critic, Allan Coleman, challenged this narrative. Prompted by a guest post on Coleman’s blog by J. Ross Baughman, a Pulitzer Prize recipient, that strongly questioned the story, Coleman started an investigation that is still ongoing. Others have joined Coleman in his project. Charles Herrick brought a military perspective to the story performed detailed research on the events of that day. Herrick’s work brought him to conclude that Capa was at Omaha Beach for only 20 to 30 minutes and that he never made it to shore.

Herrick and Coleman concluded that Capa fabricated the entire portion of his story about the second roll. They concluded that Capa chickened out, deserting the scene ignominiously. He cowered and ran home as fast as he could with a paltry showing for the world’s greatest war photographer. Ashamed and embarrassed, Capa and Morris concocted the above fiction about the beach and the second roll and the teenaged darkroom assistant and the ruined emulsion. Capa had risked his life for those pictures, and some kid had ruined them.

Somehow, Capa and Morris were able to coerce all the Life staffers in London and the military censors to go along with this story, and keep the secret until the end of their lives, even after the war and after they had returned to their homes and families. The story was passed down through the generations who continue to propagate the same fiction. The people constructed a complex and vast financial network centered on this fiction, resulting in the enrichment of nefarious characters, such as curators and CNN anchors.

Injustice

Coleman refers to these despicable people as “The Capa Consortium.” I refer to Coleman and his collaborators as “The Coleman Clan.”

The great lie has obviously enraged the Clan, because they are unable to dismantle the lie dispassionately. Their critique rhetoric is laced with cynicism, sarcasm, insinuation, and anger. Coleman called the 97-year-old Morris “morally and ethically corrupt” and considers Capa a self-aggrandizing charlatan. Herrick loathes Capa for his moral failures and his mediocre, at best, photography. Baughman considers Capa a cowardly dandy.

I admit that I was somewhat convinced on my first reading of the blog posts and Herrick’s book. However, I was so disgusted by their disrespectful language that I couldn’t get their thesis out of my head, so I read it all again. Then it dawned on me that their arguments were specious.

The first thing that popped out to me was their naïve experiment where they used a modern single lens reflex camera to mimic what Capa would be able to see through his 1936 rangefinder camera. Looking through the lens, they “proved” that he could not see enough detail through his “telescopic lens” to discern details on a distant figure. Well, of course not. The viewfinder on the rangefinder camera is separate from the lens on the camera. In fact, it’s a wide-angle view. But that didn’t stop them from high-fiving each other.

So I set out to see if their logic and reasoning was as flawed in the rest of their work as it was in this experiment, and I found that often it was.

Capa is not here to defend himself, but he can speak through his pictures. I used some high school trigonometry to calculate distances and positions of objects and men in Capa’s photographs, disproving some of the Clan’s assertions.

Robert Capa’s Negative 32 from Easy Red, June 6, 1944. Using simple trigonometric equations, I was able to calculate distances from Capa’s camera to various objects.

After calculating the distances and angles, I was able to map out Capa’s location as he made negatives 29 through 38, including how he shifted his position as he took the pictures.

Next, dissecting Herrick’a analysis of when Capa arrived at Easy Red, I found the flaws in his logic. My findings were supported by eyewitness accounts, including letters written from Normandy by a soldier who was standing next to Capa in his LCVP, and who would later become the dean of the School of Engineering at Stanford University, and an early architect in what would be come Silicon Valley. All of this refutes Herrick’s determination of Capa’s arrival time and duration of stay at Easy Red.

Finally, I did an experiment where I proved that the film in Capa’s second camera, which was submerged in the English Channel for 10 to 20 minutes then dried for 36 hours, could have had the appearance of “grey mud,” as John Morris described Capa’s “lost roll.”

A negative strip from Kodak-XX (5222) film, immersed in 3.5% saltwater for 20 minutes, then air-dried for 36 hours and developed normally. The images are barely discernible. The negatives have the appearance of “grey mud.”

The Clan severely criticized Morris for allowing an inexperienced “darkroom lad” to process some of the most important film of the Twentieth Century. But he didn’t. The film was processed by Hans Wild, who inspected the film mid development and determined that the pictures were “fabulous,” and notified Morris. He continued working on other film returned that day, and told the assistant to stick the film in the dryer with the heater turned up so that they could print the film in time for the deadline.

Dennis Banks cranked the heater to max, but when he retrieved the film from the cabinet and inspected it, he saw what you see above, and assumed this was related to the excess heat, since just prior to that Wild had declared the images to be fabulous. John Morris had no darkroom experience, so he accepted the darkroom lad’s explanation. By the time Morris could tell Capa, the prints had been made and the pictures has been published in the June 19, 1944 issue of Life magazine.

Life magazine, June 19, 1944.

So, there was no fabrication of the “darkroom myth.” And since there was no fabrication of the darkroom myth, there was no reason for Capa to lie about being on the beach, or arriving earlier in the invasion than Herrick claims. The claims made in 11 years of blog posts and a 384-page book, fall flat.

At least, that’s my theory, but I think it’s better than the Clan’s theory. If you dive into the various blog posts, I am confident that you will see the precision with which I was able to determine Capa’s location while he took these pictures. You will see the cracks in their logic when determining Capa’s late arrival. You may be appalled, as I was, of their claims that Capa arrived under relatively light fire and that there was nothing heroic about his presence on Omaha Beach at all - in fact they assert he was a coward. You will learn that 20 minutes of immersion in saltwater results in negatives that fit Morris’ description of the “lost roll” on the night of June 7. And there’s a lot more.

Each of the blog posts cover a specific part of this story, so you can jump around and dig down if you want. At some point I will go through and organize the references better.

Please feel free to comment. I welcome all opinions and viewpoints, and will seriously consider them. Thank you for your interest in this topic. Please share this with your friends and colleagues.

[Ed. note: 6/1/25. I made some word changes above after publication earlier today - things I missed. I will add an editorial note whenever I make a major change to a post. I will not put a note when I correct typographical errors or grammar.]

Robert Capa Focus Hocus-Pocus – Conclusion

This quantitative analysis of Capa’s D-Day photographs of landings on Omaha Beach challenges many of the Clan Coleman assertions.  It casts doubt on the assertion that Capa arrived at 0820 with Colonel Taylor in the 12th wave. It shows that, rather than panicking when kicked out of the LCVP, Capa adjusted to the sudden radical change in his circumstances and seized the opportunity to take more pictures.  It refutes the claim that Capa took his first photographs from behind a hedgehog.  It shows the testimony of eyewitnesses to be plausible and valid.  It shows that it was very possible that Capa made it to the beach and that his film inadvertently was ruined by short exposure to seawater (or overexposure to light).  It shows how this could be missed by an expert and misinterpreted by a naïve darkroom assistant.  It shows that John Morris, who was unfamiliar with darkroom processes and technical details, and who was unable to discern whether film was ruined by light, or water, or heat, accepted the conclusions reached by the darkroom staff.  It shows that Coleman's elaborate conspiracy conjecture is a fantasy.  It’s that simple. 

Robert Capa behaved courageously on the morning of June 6, 1944.  He accomplished his mission to capture images of the landing on Omaha Beach and get those pictures back to London before deadline so the world could see what had happened.  Two of his pictures from that morning are indisputably iconic, and among the most important of the Twentieth Century. 

And wouldn't we all like to see what was on that second roll!*

* For a tantalizing look at Robert Capa’s imagined lost roll, check out Philip Toledano’s work here.

Robert Capa Focus Hocus-Pocus – Alchemy

To find out what effect, if any, soaking in seawater would do to exposed but undeveloped film, I experimented on a freshly exposed roll of Kodak-XX 5222.  I chose XX film because it succeeded Capa's Super-XX, which had been discontinued in 1958.  I don’t have a Contax II, so I used a period rangefinder camera, the Leica IIIc.

Kodak Super-XX 35mm film. This is the film Capa used on D-Day. Kodak discontinued this film in 1958.

I added sea salt to tap water to make a 3.5% solution (average salinity of seawater), dunked the exposed cannister of film in the solution for 20 minutes (assuming the maximum amount of time Capa would have been in the water during his exodus), let it dry for 36 hours to simulate the time before Capa’s film reached Life in London, and developed it normally.  I did not put it in a heated drying cabinet; it air-dried in a shower stall.

I had always heard that saltwater can be used as a fixer in a pinch, meaning it removes undeveloped silver ions from film. If it hits film prior to exposure to the developer, it should remove most of the silver. So, I fully expected to see relatively clear negatives that would have a washed out appearance, not dark and mud grey.

The results were surprising.  First, the film felt dry and rolled onto the spool without difficulty.  I imagined that it would still be wet, or the emulsion would be sticky, making it difficult to load the film.  This would have tipped off Wild that something was wrong.  But not so.  It felt like normal, dry film.

Negatives from the first test roll, Kodak 5222 XX film respooled by CineStill, Inc.  The cannister was submerged in 3.5% saltwater for 20 minutes and then placed on its end opposite the nipple for 36 hours at room temperature to dry.  Normal processing in CineStill Df96.  The uneven effect of saltwater exposure had the least effect in the later frames, which were closest to the spool.  Also, when drying it rested on the end opposite the nipple, which would be the bottom of these frames.  This indicates that the modern cannister was tight enough to prevent complete saltwater intrusion after 20 minutes.  The fogging effect of 20 minutes exposure to saltwater appears overexposed and results in a "grey mud" appearance, exactly as described by John Morris.

Immersion in 3.5% sodium chloride for 20 minutes, followed by air-drying for 36 hours, resulted in precipitation, not removal, of metallic silver throughout the emulsion that had contact with the saltwater.  It did not wash away or distort the emulsion.  It did not prevent development, in fact it looked like the saltwater developed the film.  It had the appearance of over exposure to light, as if Capa had removed the back of his camera without rewinding the film first.*  It looked like, well, grey mud.

Plain water does not do this.  It is common to soak film in plain water prior to developing, with no adverse effect.  There must be something about saltwater. Film contains molecules of silver bromide, AgBr, in the gelatin. Bromine is a halide. Saltwater contains sodium chloride, NaCl, and the chloride is also a halide. It’s not in plain water. There must be some exchange of halides occurring with film in a solution of sodium chloride that allows the silver ion to precipitate as metallic silver crystals. But I probably need to talk to a chemist about that.

I think the uneven effect on my roll was due to incomplete saltwater exposure. I think the cannister was so light-tight that it was also pretty water-tight, and it did not fill completely. The areas that are dark correspond to where I would expect a limited amount of water to be located.

I repeated the experiment, but this time left the film cannister in saltwater for 4 hours. This did give me the results I originally expected, washed out negatives. The saltwater had fixed the second set of negatives. I guess whatever process occurred during the first 20 minutes was reversed by the persistent exposure to sodium chloride. I definitely need to talk to a chemist.

Contact sheet of film submerged for four hours in saltwater.  Most of the exposed silver ions in the emulsion were bleached out by prolonged exposure to saltwater prior to developing, resulting in negatives that appear underexposed.

My interpretation, is that the 20 minutes that the second roll of film spent submerged in seawater, in Capa’s pocket or camera bag, was sufficient to fully soak the film in 3.5% sodium chloride. This was sufficient to cause the silver ions to aggregate and then convert to metallic silver when developed. The cannisters he had may have been less water-tight than a modern cannister. After he boarded the LCI(L)-94, the water drained out of the cannisters. Thirty-six hours later the film was developed with identical results as I obtained, only his entire roll was soaked, whereas only part of mine was soaked.

This resulted in the dark, “grey mud” appearance of the negatives, that poor Dennis Banks interpreted as due to his negligence.

No one lied. Not Morris. Not Capa.

Clan Coleman would have you believe that Robert Capa and John Morris conspired to create a complex lie to explain Capa’s dearth of images from Omaha Beach, while maintaining his daring persona. They apparently intimidated all Life employees who witnessed the event into lifelong silence. And they were able to hoodwink subsequent, multigenerational employees of institutions, authors, famous CNN hosts, bloggers and YouTubers into, not just accepting these lies, but perpetuating them.

On the other hand, I have shown it is much more plausible that they simply told the truth as they saw it.

* Over exposure to sunlight is my second theory explaining the ruined roll B, in a subsequent blog post, Overexposure.

Ed: Corrected “sodium” to “chloride” when describing halide, 5/30/2025.

Robert Capa Focus Hocus-Pocus – The Darkroom Mishap

The “darkroom mishap” story occupies a large volume of Clan Coleman’s vituperative criticism of Capa and Morris.  The basic story goes like this, with slight variations over the years.

John Morris, Life magazine’s European picture editor in London, and his colleagues waited anxiously for Capa’s film to arrive after D-Day.  Other Life photographers would be sending back film, but Capa’s figure prominently in these tellings.

The film finally arrived at the Life offices at 2100 – 9pm the day after D-Day – and Morris immediately ordered his darkroom staff to process the film as quickly as possible.  Morris had an absolute deadline by which he had to send the film to New York for publication. 

In addition to other film that Capa exposed before and after the invasion while on the Chase – pictures of men on the ship and possible pictures of the armada –  Morris would have received the roll of 35mm film from Contax A and the "ruined" roll from Contax B.  Capa included a note that read, "Film like everything got wett by landing." [sic]  He had protected Contax A, so the only film that could have gotten wet was the roll from Contax B that he removed on the beach when he changed his film, that got wet in is pocket or camera bag when he waded out to the LCI. Capa may have included two more unexposed but soaked rolls.

While Morris waited, a senior darkroom technician, Hans Wild, called Morris from the darkroom to tell him the pictures were “fabulous.”  Subsequently, an adolescent darkroom assistant, Dennis Banks, ran into Morris’ office, informing him that almost all of the negatives had been ruined.  The “darkroom lad” explained that, to hasten the drying of the negatives under this deadline pressure, he had placed them in a cabinet and turned up a heating coil.  He apparently concluded that this overheated the negatives causing the emulsion to melt and ruin the film, ruining all but 10 images.  Morris, who rushed to inspect the film, said the negatives looked like "grey mud."(27) 

AI-generated image of Dennis Banks trying to understand how Robert Capa’s film was ruined right after Hans Wild said it was fabulous. That sick moment when he realized he had messed up, big time!

AI-generated image of John Morris examining the only useable images on one roll of Robert Capa’s film from Omaha Beach. Anxious Life magazine employees surround him.

Coleman et al., dispute the claim that heat could damage the film, which is the basis for their conclusion that Capa and/or Morris fabricated the story to cover for Capa’s lack of production that morning.  Tristan Da Cunha effectively has refuted the story.  Da Cunha subjected exposed period black and white film in a vintage Contax II camera, as well as exposed modern film, to high temperatures while drying.  The emulsion remained stable and did not melt or run in any of their experiments.(28)  .

The darkroom mishap story raises many questions, the first being, how did they go from fabulous to ruined in minutes?  As Coleman said, "I find it implausible that Morris would receive those precious, anxiously awaited, historic, irreplaceable four rolls of film by Capa...only to turn them over to a 15-year-old-lab assistant for developing."  To understand what actually happened requires a little bit of darkroom knowledge.

The film that Capa used that day, Super-XX, was a panchromatic film, meaning it was sensitive to all wavelengths of visible light.  Photographic paper, by contrast, is orthochromatic, meaning it is not sensitive to red light, which is why prints can be processed in a darkroom under red light.  But this would ruin a roll of panchromatic film.  The film had to be processed in complete darkness.

In a completely dark room, the technician opens the cannister of film by popping off one end, then pulls out the spool holding the film that is wound around it.  The technician then feeds the film onto another larger spool that allows for spaces between each layer of film so that it can be bathed in developing chemicals.  The film is wound onto this developing spool starting with the first frame on the roll, which means the last frames comprise the outer layer.  Capa’s surviving images, at the end of roll A, would have been present on that outer layer on the spool. 

This spool, and any others, are then placed into a light-tight developing tank, into which the developing chemicals are placed for specific times at particular temperatures to produce useable negatives. 

However, given the vicissitudes of producing photographs in combat conditions, it was not uncommon to peek at the film prior to halting development.  For example, if film had been underexposed, it might need a longer time in the developer.  W. Eugene Smith did this commonly.

Development is then stopped, often with water or even vinegar, and excess silver ions are “fixed” out of the emulsion while leaving the reduced metallic silver grains on the film with the third bath, fixer.  Finally, the film is rinsed thoroughly before hanging it to dry.

As Coleman emphatically states, it doesn’t make sense that processing the film would be left in the hands of a teenaged lad, but there is nothing in Morris’ story to indicate that it was.  I believe the development was handled by Hans Wild.  It is entirely plausible that Wild peeked at the roll from Contax A toward the end of development, saw the last images on the outer layer of the spool, finished the processing, put the film in the sink to wash, and notified the anxious Morris that the pictures were fabulous.  When it was fully rinsed, which takes about ten minutes, he probably told Banks to finish it, saying something like, “Hey, kid, stick those negs in the dryer and add some heat.  We’ve got a deadline to meet!”

Banks could have been trusted to hang the film to dry.  This is exactly the type of duty an inexperienced "darkroom lad" would be expected to do.  Wild was probably busy processing all the film that arrived by courier that night and making contact sheets for the censors, despite Coleman’s claim that they were all just sitting around with nothing to do, twiddling their thumbs.  In fact, I imagine the London Life office was very hectic during one of the greatest battles of the history of the world.  It’s ludicrous to think it was anything other than utter chaos.*

At some point, Banks would have seen that the emulsion on the roll from Contax B contained illegible images, and quite possibly assumed he did it by overheating.  After all, it went from fabulous to ruined with the hot cabinet as the only variable.  Banks probably showed the film to Wild, who realized the catastrophic magnitude of this blunder, and probably told him that he had to tell the boss.  

The Clan, who predetermined that an incompetent, cowardly, conniving Capa blew it at Omaha Beach, contend that Capa fabricated this darkroom mishap story to cover for his timid failure on D-Day.  They claim that he concocted the story to make him and Morris look heroic. 

Herrick claimed, “The last thing he [Capa] would have wanted was for the complete set of his D-Day pictures to surface… None of the many shots he claimed to have taken at the shingle would have turned up, because he never reached that point and invented that incident.” (31)  This assertion is pure speculation without foundation. 

But, it begs the question, how did roll B get ruined?

* Herrick has shown that Morris omitted a key aspect regarding the handling of film from correspondents.(29,30)   E.K. Butler explained the process in Editor and Publisher magazine, 1944, Volume 77, Issue 47, page 16. All film had to be managed by the Ministry of Information censors.  Couriers brought the film to the MOI, not directly to the magazine offices.  It was logged in before it was couriered to the appropriate outlet, such as Life magazine offices, for processing.

 After developing the film, the technicians printed contact sheets and prints, which were returned to the MOI for inspection during the day. At night, finished prints were returned to the MOI as radio prints.  Censors retained any material deemed secret, then returned the remaining film to the magazine for editing and publication.  That’s a lot oftechnical detail that would distract from the main story, which I imagine is why Morris usually omitted it.

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

Robert Capa Focus Hocus-Pocus – Contax Catastrophe

The missing “lost roll” of film that Capa exposed on the beach would be the only proof that he, indeed, made it to the beach to photograph the scene, as he claimed in his memoir. Clan Coleman claim that he lied about getting to the beach and he lied about the second roll. They say it never happened. Here’s what we know. Capa brought two Contax II 35mm film cameras with him that morning. He finished the first roll in the first camera [Contax A] after he was booted off the LCVP. Negative 38 proves that.

After he made it to the beach, he took out his second Contax II [Contax B], and shot an entire roll until the film jammed (which is what it feels like at the end of a roll when you try to advance, if you haven’t had that experience). He said he went to change film, which means that he had to rewind the roll back into its canister before removing the back. At this point he would have put that exposed roll into his camera bag or a coat pocket, before putting in a fresh roll of film.

So here is how this all went….

In his memoir, Capa described making it to the beach “behind the human cover of the last two guys.”

Once on the beach, he described an encounter with a lieutenant he met at poker the evening before, then he saw the padre, after which, “I took out my second Contax camera and began to shoot without raising my head.”  He lifted the camera, keeping his head down, and made exposures.  He took a picture of the priest and the regimental surgeon, Tegtmeyer.  The same Major Tegtmeyer who received the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions that morning. (blog post 8)

He described shells landing close and stated, “I didn’t dare to take my eyes off the finder of my Contax and frantically shot frame after frame.  Half a minute later, my camera jammed – my roll was finished.  I reached in my bag for a new roll, and my wet, shaking hands ruined the roll before I could insert it in my camera.” 

This requires scrutiny.  Wet hands would not ruin a fresh roll, because all the film except the leader would be protected in the cannister.  The film would get wet and ruined only by submersion, but he was not in water at this point.

He continued, “I paused for a moment, and then I had it bad,” describing his emotional state. He described shaking with fear.  He saw the same scene Colonel Taylor did, "Dead and wounded men – some face-down, some face-up on arched backs – littered the waterline and the sands." 23  Mortars rounds landed all around, blowing men into pieces.

Capa was straightforward about his frame of mind at this point. After the war, while writing Slightly Out of Focus, Capa ran into a fellow veteran of D-Day, Samuel M. Fuller, the filmmaker. Years later, in Fuller’s memoir, A Third Face, Fuller recalled the conversation as they talked about Capa’s D-Day pictures:*

“I was ashamed of myself at Omaha,” said Capa.

“Why should you have felt ashamed? I said.  “We’d been training seven months for that morning.  We’d rehearsed every goddamned thing.  We were armed to the gills.  You landed with only a camera and some lenses.  That took real guts.”

 “I was scared out of my mind.”

 “Holy shit, so were we!” I told him.  “Look, Robert, write exactly what you felt.  Describe the fear.  Every single soldier who survived D day will appreciate the honesty.”

AI-generated image of Robert Capa on Omaha Beach the moment that he experienced his panic attack.

Capa knew he had at least two great pictures (negatives 29 and 37 from Contax A), and several more usable pictures.  He knew he had accomplished his task, and then some.  He saw an LCI in the water that had just beached and disembarked its troops. He remembered his imperative to get pictures back to London.  He instinctively stood and ran into the water toward the boat. 

LCI(L)-94

In his memoir, Capa said, “I held my cameras high above my head,” presumably to keep them dry.  Capa's account is confirmed by Charles Jarreau onboard LCI(L)-94 who saw Capa running toward him.  He said, "Poor fellow, he was there in the water, holding his cameras up to try to keep them dry, trying to catch his breath." (25)

AI generated image of Capa wading out to LCI(L)-94

Capa held a camera in each hand and probably let the camera bag that contained his film hang off his shoulder.  This would have rested about hip height, which would have caused it to get drenched in the conditions he described.  Or he might have stowed the roll in a pocket.  Either way, the roll from Contax B, the film that would become the “lost roll,” was drenched in seawater.

Clan Coleman say none of this ever happened. There is no proof that it did, nor is there proof that it did not. Personally, I don’t think it matters if Capa made it to the sandy beach or not. That wasn’t his goal or his job. His job was to get invasion pictures back to London as soon as possible. The Signal Corps had embedded photographers whose job it was to go ashore and stay with the troops. The Clan judge Capa to be a big chicken for checking out quickly. I say, no matter what happened, it took tremendous courage to be anywhere near that beach that morning.

But, I believe that a deep understanding of the “lost roll” will show that it is entirely plausible, if not likely, that Capa made it to the beach that morning to take more pictures. In the next post I present the darkroom mishap story as told by Capa and Morris, and retold by many people and institutions since 1944. I will give a fairly detailed description of darkroom procedures to lay the foundation for a perfectly plausible explanation of what really happened that night in London.

*Coleman dismisses this conversation as two prevaricators bolstering each other’s embellished memoirs.

Fuller, Samuel M.  A Third Face My Tale of Writing, Fighting, and Filmmaking. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2002.

Accessed through Internet Archive on May 27, 2025.  https://archive.org/details/thirdfacemytaleo00full/page/n3/mode/2up?q=chase

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

25.    Ambrose, p. 395

Robert Capa Focus Hocus-Pocus – Foggy Waves of Regiments

It is necessary to pause for a moment to define a few concepts.

Regiments and Companies

First, it's important to understand the organization of the Army as it relates to Omaha Beach.  The United States Army has many units, which have subunits, which have subunits, etc.  Capa was assigned to an infantry unit – ground troops – so I will concentrate on that.

The largest infantry unit is the Division, and there are many of those.  Omaha Beach was assaulted by the First Infantry Division, AKA the Big Red One, and the 29th Infantry Division, AKA the Blue and Gray.

Divisions are divided into Regiments (Brigades).  Regiments are divided into Battalions.  Battalions are divided into Companies.  Up to 200 personnel comprise a Company.

On D-Day, the 16th Regiment of the First Infantry assaulted Omaha Beach under Colonel George A. Taylor's command.  The First Battalion of these troops were transported to France on the U.S.S. Chase.  The Second Battalion were on the U.S.S. Henrico. 

Capa was on the U.S.S. Chase, which means he was with the First Battalion.  He was originally slated to ride to the beach in the Colonel Taylor's LCVP.  But Taylor switched his entire group of out the more spacious LCM (Landing Craft Mechanized) and into a more maneuverable LCVP (Landing Craft Vehicle/Personnel), otherwise known as the Higgins boat.  The Higgins boat can hold about 33 to 36 outfitted soldiers, whereas the LCM can hold up to 100.

Wave

The wave of troops that Capa claimed to have accompanied is severely contested by Clan Coleman.  They say that he flat out lied about going in with the first wave, and are quite vituperous about it.

The term, "wave" as it applies to amphibious assault, is a malleable term.  On D-Day, the first Company from the Big Red One to arrive at the beach was Company E, aboard many LCVP's from the Henrico.  So, in one sense, the men in the first landing craft with Company E were the first wave.

However, "wave" can also mean the arrival of boats from a specific Troop Carrier, like the Henrico or the Chase.  The Coast Guard referred to the first wave from the Chase, meaning the first troops to arrive from her.  The first wave of troops from the Chase would have arrived at Omaha Beach after the first wave of troops from the Henrico, making them second wave overall.  Very confusing.

"First wave" has also been used to describe all the troops that arrived on Omaha Beach on June 6, the first 24 hours.*  So, the term "wave" is ambiguous and should not be interpreted with the specificity assigned to it by Coleman and colleagues, who continually harangue Capa for his claim to go in with the first wave.

E. K. Butler of the Associated Press Newsphoto Service, was the editor and supervisor of production for the U.S. Wartime Still Photo Pool during the invasion.  He reported, "Going in with the first assault waves were Peter Carroll of AP, Bob Capa and Bob Landry of Life, and Bert Brandt of Acme." **

Herrick did not include this quote, even though he quoted other parts of this article, presumably because it does not support his contention that Capa did not go in with the first waves.  This is another example of selective scholarship.

Personally, I don't see that it matters one bit whether someone arrived on the very first boat, or 20 boats behind them.  They all faced the same fortified enemy; they all faced the very real possibility of death.  To distinguish the order in which these men arrived, as Coleman and his friends have done, impugns the honor of many who served that day.

Fog of War

The other concept that relates to this story is the fog of war.  This generally refers to uncertainty experienced during and after complex and stressful events, such as combat.  The memories of soldiers who experienced the same event can vary significantly.  Lack of communication, command and control exacerbates the fog of war.  Lack of situational awareness plays a large part in the fog of war.  Fear, of course, amplifies and distorts perception of reality, which contributes to the fog of war.  The Coleman Clan appear to dismiss this concept, demanding absolute, precise accuracy from their human historical sources.

* In his book, The First Wave, written specifically about the first wave of troops to land on Omaha Beach, Alex Kershaw considers all the men who assaulted Normandy that day, including paratroopers, to have been in the first wave. (Alex Kershaw. The First Wave. The D-Day Warriors who led the way to Victory in World War II. Dutton Caliber, An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC. 2020 [footnote added May 28, 2025]

** Editor and Publisher, 1944-11-18: Vol 77 Iss 47

Robert Capa Focus Hocus-Pocus – Capa's Next Jump

While still at Tank 10, Capa said, “I finished my pictures and the sea was cold in my trousers.  Reluctantly, I tried to move away from my steel pole, but the bullets chased me back every time.  Fifty yards ahead of me, one of our half-burnt amphibious tanks stuck out of the water and offered me my next cover…” [emphasis added]

The Clan conclude that this refers to Tank 10, and argue that it clearly was not half-burnt.  In fact, they say this was an outright lie, that Capa never went forward from Tank 10. But, analysis of his pictures tells us that he was already sheltering behind Tank 10, shooting his pictures.  Capa probably spotted a different tank, perhaps one that is not in any of his frames, one that was “half-burnt.” Several histories of that morning attest to the fact that most of the tanks never made it to shore, and those that did drew heavy small arms and artillery fire from the Germans.  It is entirely plausible that Capa spotted a half-burnt tank further toward shore. In a later post, I will present the account of an officer who observed him behind a tank.

Capa brought with him a raincoat, which Herrick postulates was to protect his camera gear,2 however he had a waterproof oilskin camera bag for that.  Herrick further contends that it is preposterous that anyone would carry a raincoat with them during an amphibious assault, but apparently this was not uncommon.19    

Nevertheless, Capa dropped his raincoat and made for the half-burnt tank.  “Between floating bodies I reached it, paused for a few more pictures, and gathered my guts for the last jump to the beach.”

It is important to pause and address this comment from Slightly out of Focus.  The Clan consistently maintain that the photographs show no evidence of floating dead bodies.  They scoff at the idea.  Setting aside the fact that such a determination based on the grainy, blurry, flat negatives would be difficult at best, exactly how many dead bodies would one expect to see on this sector of Omaha Beach on D-Day?

Robert Capa’s photograph of French fishermen looking at dead American soldiers on the beach at Normandy. Capa took this picture when he returned from England after delivering his D-Day film.

Casualty estimates from various sources for American forces on Omaha Beach on D-Day (not Airborne, Navy, etc) range between 2,000 and 2,400, with 770 killed in action (KIA).  Omaha Beach is 6 miles long.  That’s 128 KIA per mile, assuming an even distribution of dead up and down the beach.  There are 1,760 yards in a mile, so assuming that all cadavers for that day were present on the beach or in the water during the time Capa was there (the Clan claim that he arrived after most of the killing), this yields one cadaver every 13.75 yards.  Ambrose described, "The beach was jammed with the dead, the dying, the wounded, and the disorganized."20

The distribution of KIA would not have been even, of course. Bodies and matériel were carried long distances by the riptide.  The Clan argue that this sector may have been less heavily defended with a lower average casualty rate than other stretches of Omaha, which would reduce the number of bodies.  But even if true and contrary to eyewitness statements, it doesn’t reduce it to zero. 

Dead soldiers being identified and sorted at Omaha Beach. Photograph by Martha Gelhorn.

Martha Gelhorn, married to Ernest Hemmingway, was the only female correspondent to cover the D-Day invasion, much to the chagrin of her husband. She defied direct orders and hid in the bathroom of a hospital ship to get to the beaches.

Herrick maintains that Capa arrived on Easy Red in the same LCVP with Colonel George Taylor, the commander of the 16th Infantry Regiment of the 1st Infantry Division.  Herrick localized this to the 13th wave and claims they were under minimal fire because they arrived so late, after the heavy fighting.21 To the contrary, Taylor described arriving under machine-gun fire, wading through muddy pink water with floating bodies and body parts, to the beach where he found dead and wounded men along the waterline.  Private Warren Rulien confirmed that the colonel arrived under machine-gun fire.  Official records confirm this.22 

George A. Taylor, Commander of the 16th Regimental Combat Team of the First Infantry Division (Big Red One).

The regimental surgeon, Charles Tegtmeyer, who arrived with Taylor, tripped over a body, they were so thick.23 Major Tegtmeyer's citation for the Distinguished Service Cross reads, "When Major Tegtmeyer landed with his Medical Section, the assaulting troops were still pinned down on a narrow beachhead.  Due to the devastating fire of the enemy, numerous casualties had been sustained.  With complete disregard for his own safety, Major Tegtmeyer covered the length of the beach, administering aid to the wounded lying all along the shore."24

The insistence by Team Coleman that Capa neither was under intense fire, nor could have seen and photographed the corpses of many soldiers, simply does not comport with the record. They dismiss Capa’s description of his experience to just another of his tall tales.

For this next jump, Capa described crossing 25 yards from the half-burnt tank to the beach, further evidence that this was not Tank 10, because his pictures tell us that Tank 10 was 50 yards from the beach, twice the distance.

Overall, Capa’s estimation of the distances he covered correlates quite well with the distances I calculated based on his photographs.

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/

Robert Capa Focus Hocus-Pocus – Survival Mode

Coleman and Herrick state and/or imply on multiple occasions that Capa wasn’t in any real danger, that enemy fire on Easy Red sector at that time was light.  His pictures don’t show any splashes in the water from bullets, they say. Herrick even points out that Capa’s photographs depict engineers setting charges to the hedgehogs as evidence that the men were working, not cowering.  He says that the men huddled on one of the hedgehogs would have been exposed to fire, had there been any of significance. 

I think if I were tying dynamite to a hedgehog with no one shooting at me, I would stand up or kneel, rather than lay on my belly in wet sand, trying to hold my head and three-pound helmet up, fighting my rucksack, while handling explosives on my elbows.  All of these pictures show men on the seaward side of obstacles, away from the beach and German guns.

Negative 35, cropped version of Figure 2. Note the orientation of the landing craft in the background. They are lined up perpendicular to the shore, but seen broadside here. Capa’s camera was pointed in a northeast direction in this picture. These men are facing the southwest, behind Hedgehog C. Directly ahead of them, on the west side of the beach, is the location witnesses report as the source of machine gun fire that had them pinned down.

In fact, Herrick inadvertently made the point that these men were under intense fire while claiming that they were not.  In his book (page 140), he constructed a bird’s-eye view of the men, showing their positions.  However, he erroneously determined the men’s orientation to the shore.  Negative 35 (Figure 2) clearly shows the starboard side of the distant landing craft, meaning Capa’s camera was pointed to the northeast.  Herrick’s rendition of the men shows them lying perpendicular to the shoreline. Capa’s pictures tell us how these men were positioned, about 45 degrees along a northeast axis. Herrick argues that the men around the hedgehog in negative 35 are exposing themselves to a large German gun, WN 62, to their east, which they would not have done if they had been under fire from this weapon. 

WN 62, if operable at that point,* probably was concentrating its 50mm and 75mm anti-tank rounds on the tanks and ships, rather than wasting them on men. Several eyewitness accounts bear this out. Besides, if a big gun hit those men, it would have destroyed the obstacles, and Rommel would not have been too happy about that! Machine guns were used on the men, artillery on the tanks and boats.

In Appendix A (subsequent post), I will quote witnesses who said the machine gun fire was coming from beach right, southeast of the hedgehog.  These men are all lying opposite the position of the German machine gun that was behind Capa, sheltering behind the hedgehog.  Did you catch that? The machine gun fire was coming from behind Capa as he shot this photo.

Capa’s location on Easy Red, and the two hedgehogs in Negative 35 with landing craft to the northeast. The darker grey represents the field of view of Capa’s Contax. The largest weapon in WN62 was a 50mm antitank weapon. Eyewitnesses say the area was being sprayed with machine gun fire from their right (MG). The men behind the obstacles are oriented for protection from the machine gun, not from WN62. (Not to scale)

Even though Capa did not claim it, Baughman wondered cynically if Capa's experience was like the opening scene of Steven Spielberg's, Saving Private Ryan, which he derided as a Hollywood "trope," to which Herrick replied that the shooting was more intense on other parts of Omaha Beach than where Capa landed.18

Capa may have been under lighter fire than other sectors, but he was under fire nonetheless, and fire is fire.  The Germans concentrated much of their defense efforts at Easy Red, not only with big gun emplacements, but hundreds of soldiers manning machine guns and other small arms.15  That’s a frightening situation, because death is completely random.  You’re just as dead if one bullet hits you as you are if ten do.

*John McManus considers WN62 the most formidable of all Wilderstandsnest (WN) emplacements in Normandy. This massive structure had 50mm Tobruks, 50 and 75mm anti-tank guns, and a variety of machine guns. John C. McManus. The Dead and Those About to Die. 2019, First Dutton Caliver edition (eBook).

Edited 5/26/2025 to add references and notation

15. Ambrose, p. 320

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

Robert Capa Focus Hocus-Pocus – Bonus Post

This is a bonus post, because the last one was kind of short. I promise this will be the last post that involves math.

The distance to the soldier in Negative 37 has been bugging me, and as I explained in the second post (Method), I couldn’t use my equation to figure out how far he was from Capa because the rebate was missing. Tristan Da Cunha had created an imagined rebate, but we don’t know how much of the image was cropped. But, now I think both questions have been answered… kind of…

After thinking about how to solve this problem for way too long, I realized I could try to match the grain in Negative 37 and any other negative from that roll, because the rest of them had their rebates (a rebate is the dark border around the image). So, I chose Negative 35, because I had a clear image of it, then put Negative 37 on top as a separate layer, then I started changing the size of Neg 37 until the grain matched Neg 35.

Now, I realize this is very subjective – not at all scientific – and the images were downloaded from the internet (as jpeg’s, not screen shots), but I think it’s a good approximation, and I mainly wanted to see if this matched my other calculations, and make sure it fit into the map of Capa’s activity that day. Short answer, it does.

The M1 helmet used by soldiers in World War II was 7 inches tall. Once I matched the grain, I went through my standard formula tan𝜭 = O/A, with A this time being the height of the helmet, of 7 inches (91 pixels in this picture). This time, 27 degrees was 1686 pixels. It worked out (after about 4 hours of scratching my head) to 22 feet, or 7.5 yards. And that looks about right. My earlier calculation was somewhere greater than 13 feet, so it all matches pretty well.

So, the other question this answers is how much of this negative was cropped. If my opinion of the relative grain sizes is correct, and based on a pixel height of 841 in my captures, the vertical angle of view of the crop is 13.5 degrees, which is roughly equivalent to a 100mm lens.

The Zeiss Book from 1932 lists a 85mm lens and a 135mm lens as the closest to 100mm. They made two 85mm lenses, one f/2 and the other f/4. The 135mm lens was f/4. This above analysis assumes Capa used his 50mm lens, and that’s probably a safe assumption since I doubt if he would want to change lenses while standing in the ocean with lead flying around him.

I’m sure Henri Cartier-Bresson would have made a comment about the cropping…

Magnified view on Negative 37 (left) on Negative 35. I think the grain size matches, you may disagree. If so, let me know in the comments. I realize that these are pixelated versions of a print and a negative snatched from the internet, but it’s all I had to work with.

Robert Capa Focus Hocus-Pocus – The Plan

In his book, Back in Focus, Charles Herrick makes an excellent argument that Capa’s sole assignment that day was to bring back photographs of the invasion in time to make a deadline for publication in the next issue of Lifemagazine.  That was it.  His job was not to go ashore with troops or to follow the troops inland.  That would come later.  His only responsibility that day was to provide invasion pictures on time.  Herrick states,

It’s important to remember that Capa was in the ground forces still photo pool.  The mission of that pool was to get the first photos of the invasion back to London as quickly as possible… Speed was vital, and stepping ashore wasn’t going to improve your chances of getting your film back quickly.” 12

In fact, Herrick states there was fierce competition between the photographers to return pictures first.  Another pool photographer that day, Bert Brandt, “knew that, too, which is why he merely rode to the beach on a landing craft and immediately returned to his attack transport for the trip back to the UK.”13

Herrick cites Richard Whelan, Capa’s authorized biographer, saying that, once Capa had photographs of troops going ashore, “he wanted to get his pix back to London as quickly as possible.”14

According to his memoir, just prior to the LCVP landing and dropping its ramp, Capa determined that finally there was sufficient light for photographs and removed the “first Contax camera out of its waterproof oilskin.”  This implies he had not taken any photographs in the LCVP until they arrived at the beach.  That fits with Capa’s claim that he went in early, because sunrise was 0557 that morning in Normandy. If Capa had arrived much later, after 0800 as the Clan contend, he would have had plenty of light for photographs during the trip in. In fact, had there been clear skies, the soldiers would have seen the setting full moon in the west just as the sun was rising in the east that day.

Waterproof oilskin camera bag from the 1940’s.

Capa described standing on the ramp of the boat making photographs just after the men departed.  He described the men, “Waist-deep, with rifles ready to shoot, with the invasion obstacles and the smoking beach in the background – this was good enough for the photographer.” [emphasis added]  In other words, he felt that these images fulfilled his assignment.  He had good photographs of men attacking the beach.  Indeed, of this group, negative 29 (Figure 5) is widely acclaimed as iconic.  To finish his assignment, he had to get his film back to the Life offices in London as soon as possible.

12.    Herrick, pp. 168-9

13.    ibid., p. 173

14.    ibid., p. 174

Robert Capa Focus Hocus-Pocus – Method

I needed to get inside Robert Capa’s head while on that transport on D-Day. I used the known Capa photographs from June 6, 1944 to construct a diagram that shows his position while taking those pictures, and to define the positions of the men and objects relative to each other.  Capa was using his Contax II cameras with 50mm lens attached, which is generally accepted.  He referred to “my Contax” in his memoir, and the frames have the characteristic intrusion of sprocket holes seen when film cassettes other than Zeiss are used in the camera.9

I used men and objects in the photographs as a length reference.  Negative 32 depicts, among other things, two soldiers in the water, walking up to their knees toward shore.  These are soldiers A and B, with A being the closest to Capa and B almost to the beach (Figure 1a).  The average height of an American soldier at that time was 68 inches.10  Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man tells us that the leg (knee to floor) comprises one fourth of the total height of a man.  Therefore, I assumed the visible height of each man in knee-high water to be 51 inches.

Figure 1a, Negative 32. This picture (along with negatives 30, 31 & 33, were taken from the ramp of the LCVP that Capa took from the USS Chase to Easy Red on Omaha Beach. Trigonometry was used to determine distances from Capa’s camera to men and objects. This forms the basis by which their relative locations and Capa’s movements were determined.

Figure 1b. Negative 33. The two hedgehogs are seen as well as the wooden ramp

I put digital files, obtained from the internet, of negatives 32, 35 and 37 into Adobe Photoshop and measured the vertical height of the frame in pixels between the upper and lower frame edges.  I standardized all three negatives to a height of 2132 pixels.  Using 27 degrees as the vertical angle of view of a 50mm lens, this gave me a reference to make other measurements, seen in negative 32 (Figure 1).

I then measured the pixel height of soldiers A and B.  Assuming a right angle between the line of sight from Capa’s lens to their vertical height ending at their heads, the ratio of their height to the height of the frame gave me a factor with which I determined the angle they subtended in the photograph.  I then subtracted this from 90 degrees to give me the complementary angle, 𝛳.

Using this information, I was able to calculate the distance to each man using the formula tan𝛳 = O/A, where A is the height of the object (ie, the soldier, 51 inches) and O is the distance to the man.

This yielded a distance from Capa’s camera of 61 feet to soldier A and 270 feet to soldier B, near the shoreline.  To measure the distance to Tank 10, I applied the same formula to soldier C standing at the corner of the tank nearest to Capa.  Tank 10 was 116 feet from Capa.  Using this same method, I determined that the tank in the center of the image was 221 feet from Capa, and so forth.

With these measurements, I used the law of cosines to calculate distances that did not involve a right triangle.  For example, I calculated the distance from soldier A to soldier B at 213 ft.

For negative 35, I applied the formula to the two Czech hedgehogs in the center and left foreground; the closest, hedgehog C,* was 36 feet from Capa (Figure 2).  For this, I used the length of each arm of the hedgehogs of 36 inches.11

Figure 2, Negative 35

I applied the same process to negative 37 (Figure 3).

Figure 3, Negative 37. The distance to this soldier is not as precise as other distances calculated because this is a cropped image. The upper and right rebates (frame lines) were created by Tristan daCunha. This means that the actual distance to this soldier from Capa is probably greater than 13 feet, because I do not know the vertical height in pixels from frame edge to frame edge. What you see as frame edges were imagined and created by Tristan daCunha in his excellent analysis that examined whether or not heat can cause emulsion to run.*** The important part of this image, however, is the presence of the two hedgehogs in the background, and the wood ramp. These appear to be the same hedgehogs and ramp that are seen in Capa’s negatives 30 through 33 (Figure 1a & 1b).

Next, I created a PSD document in which 1 centimeter equaled 10 feet.  Using Capa’s location on the LCVP,** I drew objects of interest, such as soldiers A and B, Tank 10, the hedgehogs, the shoreline, and the anonymous soldier in negative 37.  I superimposed triangles that indicated the horizontal coverage of Capa’s 50 mm lens.  I then positioned the triangles such that they would cover the objects as they appeared to him in the photographs (Figure 4).

Figure 4

I estimate that my measurements were precise enough to yield a 5 ft margin of error.

* May 23, 2025: I corrected a typo from A to C and added HHC to Figure 2 to clarify correlation with map, and correct a typo in Figure 1b.

** LCVP stands for landing craft vehicular personnel.  Its dimensions are 10.5 ft by 36 ft.

***https://tdacunha.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Robert-Capa-and-the-mystery-of-the-lost-photos-2.pdf

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

Robert Capa Focus Hocus-Pocus - Introduction

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/