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Reminder that Robert Capa, the jewish photographer who took many of the most famous photos of D-Day, lied about everything he did that day.
https://petapixel.com/2019/02/16/debunking-the-myths-of-robert-capa-on-d-day/
https://petapixel.com/2019/02/16/debunking-the-myths-of-robert-capa-on-d-day/
Seriously, EVERYTHING is a lie about this guy.
He said he hit the beach in the first wave at 0630, staying for 90mins until he either ran out of film or his camera jammed. Untrue, he landed with a colonel at 0900 and stayed for no more than 15mins, missing most of the battle.
He said he hit the beach in the first wave at 0630, staying for 90mins until he either ran out of film or his camera jammed. Untrue, he landed with a colonel at 0900 and stayed for no more than 15mins, missing most of the battle.
He also didn't run out of film, nor did his camera jam. He took like ten photos, five of them FROM THE RAMP of the landing craft, and then he ran back to the landing craft so his pics would be the first in the news (he had a deadline in London)
Capa said the tank on the left side of this image was a burnt-out husk. It wasn't. It was fine. Other photographers later got photos of that exact tank clearing obstacles from the beach.
The famous "face in the surf" photo was identified as PFC Huston "Hu" Riley, but that can't be true bc Riley really did hit the beach in the first wave, and in a more heavily defended sector. So to this day, nobody knows the identity of this man.
Notice how there's no carnage in the photos. No floating bodies or body parts, no discarded equipment, no shell splashes. That's because Capa arrived on one of the most lightly-defended sectors of Omaha Beach, and the battle was already mostly over when he got there.
Capa also lied about the real number of photos he took, upwardly revising the number repeatedly within his own autobiography.
Capa claimed that the vast majority of his photos were destroyed in an improbable accident in the darkroom. None of that happened. The ten photos he took show no signs of heat damage. There was no disaster. No photos were lost and none were saved either.
He also claimed he had been reported dead after someone mistook a body in the surf for him, and he said his obituary had been released. That was a lie, didn't happen.
He claimed his camera got soaked and it was a miracle he was able to take any photos at all. Not true. Capa returned to Normandy on June 8 after the battle had ended and used the same equipment to take more photos.
In his rush to get back to London so his photos would be the first published, Capa provided no caption information, so the alleged "stories" behind the photos are basically all guesswork (made up)
Capa said this photo showed American soldiers hiding from enemy fire behind these obstacles. NOT TRUE, they were engineers working to blow up the obstacles so more materiel could get ashore.
The reason I'm going through these lies extensively (and these aren't even all of the lies noted in the article) is because this was a watershed moment for me personally- this is the point where I lost my remaining faith in the normal historiographical process.
If something as seemingly straightforward as the story behind a couple of photographs is an out-and-out lie, imagine what other events from history that we "know" to be true are in reality utter falsehoods.
So how did this myth happen? Well, Capa had some powerful institutions running defense for him and propagating this myth.
TIME even went so far as to fabricate fake "ruined" photos from Capa's camera roll for a 2014 video celebrating the mythology of Capa.
Capa's authorized biographer knowingly lied about the darkroom accident, and the curator of the Capa Archive also repeated this lie and plagiarized it. The International Center of Photography, owner of the Capa Archive, routinely hinders efforts to scrutinize Capa more closely.
This is how "big lies" are created. A few vested interests coalesce around the lie, and then repeat the same mythos endlessly until even people who really should know better are mindlessly repeating the same points.
