The credibility of Wiliam Kays’s 2010 account falls apart under close examination. While much of his book is based on contemporary letters to his family, the bulk of the text consists of reminiscences, which are subject to the same memory issues as other personal histories recorded decades after the fact. […]
|
Follow me on Mastodon:
@adcoleman@hcommons.social
 |
Between Charles Hangsterfer inaccurately placing his D-Day landing time at least an hour too early — an extremely common tendency in later oral histories — and his assertion that he saw Capa still behind a tank on the beach, his story has helped distort and confuse the Capa timeline. […] Capa’s account of his landing in his book “Slightly Out of Focus” clearly had been “pumped up” for sales. Capa apparently lifted the carnage that occurred elsewhere on Omaha Beach and superimposed it on his own much less deadly experiences. One only has to take a fresh, unbiased look at his photos for proof. […] Hiding in the surf behind the disabled assault vehicle as Capa did represented just one option at that juncture. The battle had already begun to move off the beach and up the ridge; Capa could have followed the action and gone along. After all, that’s why LIFE had given him this highly coveted front seat. […] |
 SPJ Research Award 2014All content of this publication is © copyright 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 by A. D. Coleman unless otherwise noted. All materials contained on this site are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced for commercial purposes without prior written permission. All photos copyright by the individual photographers. "Fair use" allows quotation of excerpts of textual material from this site for educational and other noncommercial purposes.
Published by Flying Dragon LLC.
|
Alternate History: Robert Capa on D-Day (10)
In his own account of boarding the LCI which took him away from Omaha Beach, Capa describes an explosion that takes place moments after he came aboard, killing several crew members. Based on Lewis’s diary entry, that happened just minutes after they disembarked their troops — somewhere around 0750. If these details add up, then, Capa reached Omaha Beach at 0725 at the very earliest, and clambered into the relative safety of the LCI at 0750, just 25 minutes later. That boat departed Omaha Beach at at 0837. So Capa was at Omaha Beach for a maximum of 72 minutes, following the second-wave troops and photographing them for less than half an hour. […]