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Alternate History: Robert Capa on D-Day (2019)

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Re: Alternate History: Robert Capa on D-Day (2019)

#11

Post by doodlebugging »

kingcharles wrote: post #10
dmckeon wrote: post #8

Fascinating story of how the “fog of war” can obscure the facts, whether intended or not. Capa presumably had Life magazine as a client or employer, they sent him to get photos of the landing, on a tight deadline. Capa went, got photos, came back with his film, and some of the shots he got were delivered and printed, on deadline. I see his actions and decisions as professional photo-journalism, and see the entire fab…

This little incident has now tainted his entire oeuvre. The truth was fine, there was no need for all the fiction. When you work in journalism your reputation is everything. EDIT: Reading much further into the rabbit hole there remains the possibility that there were more photos that were censored by the British government and that the players involved were fed a (weak) cover story that they were then sworn to uphold…

>there remains the possibility that there were more photos that were censored by the British government

I believe that the photos would've run into the SHAEF censors and been permanently censored (deleted). SHAEF was not the British government but was instead the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force(s), with Gen Dwight D Eisenhower as commander and other Field Generals from all the branches of the Allied nations in the European Theater as subordinates. Thus it would've been purely a military censor in charge of allowing or disallowing publication.

One of my favorite passages about military censors comes from that awesome book "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller where Yossarian ends up in a position where he must censor correspondence leaving their camp and he gets pretty inventive with his methodology. The whole book is hilarious if you have never read it. His passage about censorship is pretty great.

I couldn't find my copy of the book but I did find this online mention for your enjoyment:

https://www.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2012/07/12/two-par...

Re: Alternate History: Robert Capa on D-Day (2019)

#12

Post by kingcharles »

doodlebugging wrote: post #11
kingcharles wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This little incident has now tainted his entire oeuvre. The truth was fine, there was no need for all the fiction. When you work in journalism your reputation is everything. EDIT: Reading much further into the rabbit hole there remains the possibility that there were more photos that were censored by the British government and that the players involved were fed a (weak) cover story that they were then sworn to uphold…

>there remains the possibility that there were more photos that were censored by the British government I believe that the photos would've run into the SHAEF censors and been permanently censored (deleted). SHAEF was not the British government but was instead the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force(s), with Gen Dwight D Eisenhower as commander and other Field Generals from all the branches of the Allied n…

Appreciate the correction. As a Brit I should have fact-checked myself better, and my knowledge of the war should be better. As a child I lived in a military retirement home which was practically all soldiers and civilians involved with D-Day and Dunkirk so I got to hear many first hand accounts of these events.

Re: Alternate History: Robert Capa on D-Day (2019)

#14

Post by toast0 »

kingcharles wrote: post #10
dmckeon wrote: post #8

Fascinating story of how the “fog of war” can obscure the facts, whether intended or not. Capa presumably had Life magazine as a client or employer, they sent him to get photos of the landing, on a tight deadline. Capa went, got photos, came back with his film, and some of the shots he got were delivered and printed, on deadline. I see his actions and decisions as professional photo-journalism, and see the entire fab…

This little incident has now tainted his entire oeuvre. The truth was fine, there was no need for all the fiction. When you work in journalism your reputation is everything. EDIT: Reading much further into the rabbit hole there remains the possibility that there were more photos that were censored by the British government and that the players involved were fed a (weak) cover story that they were then sworn to uphold…

The article says the myth began to appear a few months later. Probably people asking, hey, you got some good pictures of D-Day, anything else we missed? But you can't say, oh I took a ton of pictures, but the darn censors wouldn't let me show it, because the first rule of censorship is you don't talk about censorship. But, you don't go to the beach and take only 11 pictures, so you need a story. And you can only dump so many film bags into the English Channel.

Then once the myth gets legs, well, the myth had legs. And you don't want to contradict it, because your reputation is everything, and the censors aren't going to rat you out. They would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for those meddling kids.

Re: Alternate History: Robert Capa on D-Day (2019)

#16

Post by jimnotgym »

tialaramex wrote: post #5

"In Scotland, there is at least one sheep, at least one side of which appears to be black from here some of the time." It would be practically impossible in the 1940s to have faked the photographs but it's not difficult at all to misrepresent what they are photographs of, the circumstances in which they were taken, and how they came to be available. Facts are true, and we should rightly ridicule people who insist oth…

> (a camera plus film goes where the guns would otherwise fit in the plane)

I don't think that is necessarily true. I think the guns and ammunition were very heavy so removing them allowed you to fly faster and further. I don't think say a PR spitfire had cameras in the wings where the guns normally were, I think it was in the fuselage behind the pilots seat so always looking down at the ground.

Re: Alternate History: Robert Capa on D-Day (2019)

#17

Post by tialaramex »

jimnotgym wrote: post #16
tialaramex wrote: post #5

"In Scotland, there is at least one sheep, at least one side of which appears to be black from here some of the time." It would be practically impossible in the 1940s to have faked the photographs but it's not difficult at all to misrepresent what they are photographs of, the circumstances in which they were taken, and how they came to be available. Facts are true, and we should rightly ridicule people who insist oth…

> (a camera plus film goes where the guns would otherwise fit in the plane) I don't think that is necessarily true. I think the guns and ammunition were very heavy so removing them allowed you to fly faster and further. I don't think say a PR spitfire had cameras in the wings where the guns normally were, I think it was in the fuselage behind the pilots seat so always looking down at the ground.

Good point. I know that during WW2 there was a lot of innovation in this area, and indeed this article suggests a lot changes over those few year but yes, you're right I was incorrect to suggest that you'd rip out the guns from an existing fighter in order to fit cameras in the reclaimed space, the recon planes don't have guns for weight reasons and also to emphasise their mission purpose, if your plane doesn't have any guns you won't go looking for fights.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_reconnaissance_in_World...

Re: Alternate History: Robert Capa on D-Day (2019)

#18

Post by doodlebugging »

kingcharles wrote: post #12
doodlebugging wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>there remains the possibility that there were more photos that were censored by the British government I believe that the photos would've run into the SHAEF censors and been permanently censored (deleted). SHAEF was not the British government but was instead the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force(s), with Gen Dwight D Eisenhower as commander and other Field Generals from all the branches of the Allied n…

Appreciate the correction. As a Brit I should have fact-checked myself better, and my knowledge of the war should be better. As a child I lived in a military retirement home which was practically all soldiers and civilians involved with D-Day and Dunkirk so I got to hear many first hand accounts of these events.

You're good. That sounds like an amazing childhood.
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