The question becomes this: does the photo show LCI(L)-94 already retracting after its first landing? These two timelines argue that Capa landed first, and subsequently photographed LCI(L)-94 during its first approach to the beach. […]
The question becomes this: does the photo show LCI(L)-94 already retracting after its first landing? These two timelines argue that Capa landed first, and subsequently photographed LCI(L)-94 during its first approach to the beach. […] This would seem to prove definitively that Capa’s account of his boarding of LCI(L)-94 is not accurate. There simply wasn’t time for him to go to the engine room, thoroughly dry off, smoke a couple of cigarettes, pick off all the kapok debris, change film (maybe?) and regain his composure in time to go back above decks and start taking pictures just off the beach. […] So when did Capa board LCI(L)-94? I believe it was at the end of the ship’s first beaching, before it shifted 100 yards down the beach. But that would have been a far less dramatic tale, so he crafted a hodge-podge story based on details he later observed around the ship and inserted himself into it. […] Capa had transferred from LCI(L)-94 to the attack transport ship USS Samuel Chase (APA-26), and there he took at least one photo of LCI(L)-85 as it was moored alongside the Chase, transferring off wounded shortly before it sank. It seems Capa appropriated events that he had seen others experience, and wove them into his own story as though they had happened to him. […] For those die-hards who cling to Capa’s “First Wave With Company E” myth, Fuller’s inaccuracies have become sacred truths. The fact that Capa himself affirmed he was on the Chase, not the Henrico, has had no effect on their delusions. […] |