Guest Post 35: Patrick Peccatte on Philippe Villéger Hypothesis (c)

[Back in August of 2021 Patrick Peccatte introduced me, via email, to Philippe Villéger. Villéger is a member of the informal collective devoted to annotating the historic WWII images of Normandy posted online at PhotosNormandie, another internet project to which Peccatte contributes. (For more about Peccatte, Villéger, and the PhotosNormandie project, see the details at the end of this post.)

Villéger raised an intriguing possibility: Given the correlation that military historian Charles Herrick and I established between Capa’s Omaha Beach images and color film footage shot by U.S. Coast Guard cinematographer David T. Ruley from a different position and angle but at roughly the same time, could Ruley have actually recorded the arrival on the Easy Red sector of the very same Higgins boat that brought Capa in?

I found this a reasonable and indeed logical question, yet one that had not occurred to me. In the end, Peccatte penned a distillation of Villéger’s arguments, while also taking into account evidence developed previously by Charles Herrick and myself. This has resulted in an article summarizing that hypothesis. Peccatte published this first, in French, at his blog on December 20, 2021. The English translation — achieved by me — will appear here in three installments. You’ll find Part 3 below; click here for Part 1, and here for Part 2. — A.D.C.]

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Could Robert Capa have been filmed while photographing the Normandy landings? (c)

by Patrick Peccatte

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Conclusion — Robert Capa’s landing: from Bloody Omaha to Ruley’s film

… Despite its inconsistencies, the analysis of Ruley’s film that we have just summarized is enlightening. Whatever the scenario chosen, “correlated” or “uncorrelated,” this document inarguably shows what the landing experienced by Capa must have looked like. The landing group in which the photographer participated must have been quite similar to the one that appears in the chosen sequence: the place and the LCVP barge are identical, the composition and the mode of deployment of the group are similar, the schedule is probably very close.

Only a few bullet and shell splashes can be seen in the sea. However, the soldiers were obviously landing under enemy fire, as they were constantly protecting themselves. But they are making steady progress; they are not being decimated. With the exception of the heavily laden soldiers coming ashore from LCI(L)-94, very few bodies are seen in the sea, which is shallow at this point (a few are seen in the rest of the film).

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The newly disembarked men from the LCVP seen in the upper left of the frame are moving in normal fashion towards the shore. Some are running, others are overloaded and walking. Clearly, they are neither paralyzed by fear nor immobilized by enemy fire. At the same time, other groups are advancing under the cover of amphibious tanks. Specialized teams are working near the beach obstacles to destroy them.

In summary, the film shows a frontal attack on a well-defended shoreline. The enemy has placed effective obstacles to prevent the assault, has the advantage of the terrain, and defends its positions fiercely. But, despite these difficulties, the American attackers do not appear to be helpless; each group of soldiers seems to be carrying out its assigned task in good order.

This description is quite different from the image we usually have of the Omaha Beach landing, especially through Capa’s pictures. As Herrick summarizes: “So much of the fame of these photos is due to the false tale that they were taken as the first wave landed under murderous fire. They were not. They were taken two hours after H-Hour on a stretch of Omaha Beach which was relatively lightly defended. Motion-picture film taken of the very same area at the same time (by Coast Guard Chief Photographer’s Mate Ruley from the beached LCI(L)-94) provide an entirely different — and more accurate — context to Capa’s photos.”[1]

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Of the five D-Day beaches, Omaha Beach was by far the most deadly. There were ten times more casualties than on Utah, the other American beach. However, as historian Olivier Wieviorka points out,

By the evening of June 6, the Allies had a satisfactory record, since some 156,000 men had landed on the Normandy shore [including] 56,000 on Utah and Omaha. Contrary to a persistent legend, the losses were relatively minimal. While the general staffs predicted 25,000 casualties, they recorded only 10,000 dead, wounded or missing — an obviously comforting figure. Omaha accounted for a quarter of this gruesome toll …[2]

The historian Anthony Beevor also put the losses into perspective by recalling that 3,000 French civilians died on the first day of the landings, twice the total number of American deaths.[3] Like other historians of the Second World War, he also emphasizes that the initial assault, which was particularly hard on Omaha, counted a lot in the American memory of the event: “Although the Allied losses on D-Day were much lower than the estimates of the staffs, this in no way lessened the shock of the massacre of the first wave at Omaha […] Omaha became an American legend.”[4] It is in fact on only one sub-sector of Dog Green, the one where Company A of the 116th Infantry Regiment arrived during the first wave, that the landing at Omaha qualifies as a true massacre. With 100 men killed out of 215,[5] this specific dramatic episode now symbolizes for the general American public the entire assault on Omaha Beach.

The historian Christophe Prime formulates a similar opinion: “The battle fought by the [U.S. Army V Corps] on Omaha Beach did not surpass in intensity or ferocity the battles fought by the Allies in the Pacific or in Italy, but it became a major military event.”[6] Since then, its importance in the American memory has been constantly maintained by commemorations and successive visits by American presidents.

It is from these two real observations that the story of “Bloody Omaha” was constructed and that it spread very soon after the landings: the most deadly beach overall and the shock of the first wave on certain sectors. It is by following the history of the construction of this narrative that we can understand how Capa’s famous photographs were received and interpreted, and where the (false) idea that they were taken during a terribly deadly assault, that of the first wave at Omaha Beach, came from.

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As early as June 8, 1944, several American and Canadian newspapers published some of Robert Capa’s photos, as well as a photo by Robert F. Sargent, a U.S. Coast Guard photographer, also taken at Omaha, which was also to become iconic.[7] These images of the battlefields and the beaches were sent to the agency pool and forwarded to newspapers as radio photographs. In keeping with pool practice, the photographer’s name does not appear in their credit lines. The captions are sketchy and fairly stereotypical. Of course, the landing place and the code name of the beach are never revealed. The captions do not mention whether the soldiers belonged to the first wave of the assault, but it is regularly stated that they were under heavy artillery and machine-gun fire from German pillboxes.

On June 9, “The Face in the Surf” was published in several newspapers. In the end, at least six of Capa’s ten photographs taken on June 6 appeared in American newspapers during the first days after the landing. Capa’s photographs were combined indiscriminately with other photographs taken at Omaha and Utah to illustrate, on the American side, the landing that had just taken place. At this point, the two American beaches get confused.

On June 9, one of the first photos showing American dead on Omaha Beach was also published (see reference p012903, on PhotosNormandie). Its caption is again sober. One newspaper, however, ventures to point out, “Although casualties were not as high as expected in the initial landings, Allied officers warn that the percentage may rise as German counterattacks gather in force.” (Photo caption published in The Washington Observer, June 10, 1944, p. 2.) One can assume that the text was written in order to reassure the public by minimizing the actual losses, but it would prove to be accurate, even in its prognosis, since the American losses would later be significantly heavier than expected, especially during the “battle of the hedgerows” as the troops moved inland from the beach.

The issue of Life magazine dated June 19, 1944 published five of Capa’s photos taken on the beach and five others taken while he was on his way back to England, first on LCI(L)-94 and then on the USS Samuel Chase. In the unsigned article accompanying his photos, Capa is introduced as the Life photographer “who went in with the first wave of troops”; the text continues, “Although the first reports of landings indicated little opposition, his pictures show how violent the battle was and how strong the German defense” (art. cit., p. 25).

The caption to Capa’s first Omaha photo (C29) continues in the same vein: “The first wave of U.S. assault troops race through boiling surf to the beach. From the higher ground tapping machine guns have brought down several men in the water.”

From then on, Capa and his photographs would be associated with the first wave of the assault.

The text then gives a very imprecise and false location, between Saint-Vaast-la Hougue and Isigny, i.e. the southeastern coast of the Cotentin peninsula, where Utah Beach is located, roughly 23 miles from Omaha Beach.

The photo of the first American dead published on June 9 is also included in this issue of Life, as an illustration of an article by Charles Christian Wertenbaker, who was then the magazine’s foreign editor. The article is very evasive about the operations as well as the names of the ships mentioned, and the accompanying maps are erroneous. (In early September of 1944 Wertenbaker published the first book devoted entirely to the Normandy landings, Invasion!, illustrated with photos by Capa.)

The code name of the beach appeared for the first time in Life at the end of August 1944, more than two months after the landing, as the Battle of Normandy was coming to an end, in a series of drawings by Aaron Bohrod.[8] For the artist, Omaha is a “code name for a famous landing point somewhere in Normandy.” No details are given on the losses suffered by the American army at this site.

In October 1944, the same artist produced a series of paintings for the magazine on Omaha, described as “the bloodiest beachhead in Normandy.”[9] The article mentions other beach names used by the Americans, such as Utah and Red [sic], and specifies that “the reddest of them all, in terms of blood, was Omaha.”

The expression was thus launched at the end of 1944, and Omaha Beach was from then on frequently described as “the bloody one.” In Life, thereafter, the beach was described in this way several times — for example, in two articles presenting works by the painter Ogden Pleissner. In January 1945 he illustrated a “scene of the bloodiest landings” at Omaha Beach, and in May 1946 he painted “the bloodiest beach in Normandy.”[10]

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Other American magazines, including Newsweek, used the expression “bloody Omaha” between 1945 and 1947.[11] The formula was also frequently used in newspapers: 7 times in 1945, 7 times in 1946, 11 times in 1947, not to mention descriptions of Omaha Beach using other equally sinister terms.[12]

In France, on the occasion of the third anniversary of D-Day, the resistance newspaper Le Franc-Tireur published an article on “Omaha, la plage sanglante [the bloody beach].”[13]

Ever since this passage in the immediate post-war period, the term “bloody Omaha” has become established, especially in publications aimed at the general public. On the other hand, it has never been used much by historians, who, as we have seen, put in perspective the American losses suffered on this beach. As early as 1945, the historian Charles Holt Taylor avoided the term by describing the battle factually and precisely in a copious work soberly entitled Omaha Beachhead, prepared at the request of the U.S. Army.[14] The historians mentioned above are mindful of the fact that the battle of Omaha Beachhead was a major event in the history of the United States. The historians mentioned above (Ambrose, Wieviorka, Beevor, Prime) do not use it either; Jean Quellien is apparently one of the rare contemporary historians to use it, and probably the only one who still affirms that Capa landed with the first assault wave at Omaha Beach.[15]

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Let us return to Capa. His book Slightly Out of Focus was published in 1947, when the reputation of “Bloody Omaha” had already been widely established among the general public. Three years earlier, Life had presented Capa as the only photographer who landed on that beach with the first wave of the assault. When he discusses the event in his book, therefore, the photographer needs only to assume this role.

He then matches his account to the reputation of the beach, so deadly for the first wave to which he claims to belong. He describes the bullets and shells that pierce the sea, the charred tanks, the sinking landing craft, the floating bodies around him and the dead that roll with the waves. He also tells how the LCI he has just boarded to leave the beach was hit by a deadly bombardment (which is true), and how the ship is sinking (which is false).

This account, which does not really match what Ruley’s film shows, was probably composed by Capa to match the public’s image of the first-wave assault on “Bloody Omaha” at the time. He knowingly dramatized his testimony by describing himself narrowly escaping death on a sinking ship, splattered with blood and kapok, then passing out.

Let’s be clear. This is not to suggest that the landing Capa experienced at Omaha was easy and safe. The care of the wounded following the deadly bombing of LCI, photographed by Capa and filmed by Ruley, clearly shows that this was not the case. Capa was indeed in the thick of a battle. Like all the soldiers around him, he feared being wounded or killed. But about two hours after the first-wave assault, the course of the offensive in this particular sector of Easy Red was certainly not apocalyptic, in the manner of the opening scene of the film Saving Private Ryan. Ruley’s film provides a better understanding of the context of Capa’s photographs; it shows that the difficulties and perils of the ongoing battle were real, but were still consistent with what one might expect from the continuation of an orderly attack hours after the shock of the initial assault.

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Thanks to A. D. Coleman and Philippe Villéger.

Dedicated to the late Bernard Lebrun, in memory of our discussions on Capa and some other subjects.

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(Part 1 I 2 I 3)

Notes:

[1] Guest Post 27: Charles Herrick on Capa’s D-Day (h), May 17, 2019, comments.

[2] Olivier Wieviorka, Histoire du Débarquement en Normandie – Des origines à la libération de Paris – 1941-1944 (Paris : Éditions du Seuil, 2007), p. 236.

[3] Antony Beevor, D-Day et la bataille de Normandie, translated from the English by Jean-François Sené, Raymond Clarinard and Isabelle Taudière (Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 2009), p. 129.

[4] Antony Beevor, ibid., pp. 129-130.

[5] Antony Beevor, op. cit., p. 129.

[6] Antony Beevor, op. cit., p. 129.

[7] See Les premières publications des photos de Robert Capa sur le débarquement en Normandie, August 16, 2013.

[8] “Speaking of Pictures – Aaron Bohrod sketches the war in France,” Life, Aug. 28, 1944, p. 8.

[9] “Omaha Beach” – A historical record of the bloodiest Normandy beachhead is painted by Aaron Bohrod, Life, Oct. 30, 1944, p. 53.

[10] Breakthrough at St Lô – Pleissner paints historic turning point of the war, Life, Jan. 8, 1945, p. 46 [On Omaha Beach, scene of the bloodiest invasion landings…] / Battlefield of Europe – A “Life” artist paints the war’s memorable places, Life, May 13, 1946, p. 68 [Omaha Beach… the bloodiest beach in Normandy].

[11] See, for example: History 67th Armored Regiment, Volume 2, no. 67, 1945, p. 22; The American Photo Engraver, Volume 37, 1945, p. 36; The Red Cross Courier, Volumes 25 to 28, 1945, p. 22; Newsweek, Volume 27, Section 2, 1946, p. 34. Sources: Ngram Viewer.

[12] Source: Google Newspapers.

[13] “Trois ans après… Avec un vétéran à Omaha Beach, la plage sanglante,” Le Franc-Tireur, June 6, 1947, p. 1.

[14] The Battle for Omaha Beach, D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Official History by the U.S. Army, Modern Annotated Edition. Boston Hill Press, 2014. [First published at war’s end in 1945 as Omaha Beachhead by the U.S. Army. The official historian was Colonel Charles Holt Taylor, a former professor at Harvard University].

[15] Jean Quellien, Le Jour J et la bataille de Normandie, Orep Editions, 2015, p. 168 and p. 174.

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[Editor’s note: I confess that I find this speculation extremely tantalizing. I certainly want to imagine that Capa stands just behind the right front end of the hull of that LCVP in Ruley’s clip, making his first exposures on Easy Red. Irresistibly tempting to visualize him there, uncertain in the moment about whether to step off, balancing the publication value of the few images he’s made from this Higgins boat against the importance of a verifiable photographic claim to have put his boots on the ground. Deciding to go in after the last soldier jumps down, unaware that a Coast Guard cinematographer’s camera is rolling, framing that exact scene, that he has only a second to act before the clip ends …

And, of course, I yearn for the kinds of additional evidence Peccatte calls for at the conclusion of his article. I want to believe that there’s a higher-resolution version of Ruley’s film — and/or that new digital tools could enable the sharpening of the original to reveal more detail.

Taking this hypothesis further without such improvements — and perhaps even with them in hand — moves us into the territory of confirmation bias. I’m reminded of both Julio Cortázar’s 1959 short story “Blow-Up” (whose narrator, an avid amateur photographer, coincidentally uses a Contax 35mm camera) and the 1966 movie that Michelangelo Antonioni made based on it. Both versions confront us with the ambiguity of photographic images and the limitations, perceptual and material, that this medium places on what we can derive, deduce, and infer from photographs with any degree of certainty.

In short, I believe that Patrick Peccatte and Philippe Villéger have taken this possibility as far as it can go for now, given the evidence presently in hand. I consider it a valuable  thought experiment, extrapolating as it does from verifiable facts to raise a relevant question. Assuredly, I will never again watch that Ruley clip without wondering “What if?” — A.D.C.]

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Patrick Peccatte is a former mathematics professor, computer engineer, and specialist in digital image databases. He was a research associate at the Laboratoire d’histoire visuelle contemporaine (Lhivic/EHESS). With Michel Le Querrec, he created and developed the PhotosNormandie project. He is currently an independent researcher and his research notebook Déjà Vu on visual studies is hosted on the academic platform Hypothèses.

His current research focuses on methodologies for the analysis of weakly structured iconographic sets, in particular images in popular culture.

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PhotosNormandie is a French collaborative project that aims to improve the captions of more than 5100 photos and 300 historical films of the Normandy landings and battle. Active on the Flickr sharing platform since January 2007, it is one of the oldest crowdsourcing projects on images in the world. The PhotosNormandie team is made up of passionate amateurs and has also been interested in Robert Capa’s photos of the Battle of Normandy several times, although they do not belong to the project’s corpus (see the Robert Capa tag).

The photos of the project on Flickr:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/photosnormandie
The films of the project on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/user/PhotosNormandie/videos
The FAQ of the project, in French:
https://dejavu.hypotheses.org/2998

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Philippe Villéger is a contributor to the PhotosNormandie project. It is within the framework of the project that he formulated the hypothesis discussed in this article. He works in a company that manufactures small series of mechanical parts, mainly for the aeronautical industry.