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Lost D-Day film: Myths or Fact?


GITom1944
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Looking for opinions and or facts/references...

 

I've been interested in D-Day, WW2 photos and documentaries for decades. Despite its historical significance, the first hours of the U.S. are poorly documented on film. The Omaha Beach landing seems to be associated with a number of "lost film" stories. I'd love to see some new photos/film of Omaha Beach surface but I suspect some of these stories may be more myth than reality.

 

1. Robert Capa's lost photos. It had been believed for decades that Capa had taken over 100 photographs on Omaha Beach but most had been ruined by an overeager darkroom assistant in London. Only eleven images were said to have been spared. History buffs like myself wondered what had been captured on those frames that was lost forever. More recently, however, there has been reporting that the eleven "surviving" photos were actually the only ones that Capa took on Omaha Beach on June 6th. http://www.nearbycafe.com/artandphoto/photocritic/2014/06/23/alternate-history-robert-capa-on-d-day-7/

 

2. Color OSS footage taken from the German side of the beach. This story was reported in Steven Ambrose's D-Day book and was repeated in the History Channel's Brad Meltzer's "Lost History" http://www.history.com/shows/brad-meltzers-lost-history/season-1/episode-9. The story is that an OSS photographer named George Hjorth parachuted into Normandy three days before D-Day with orders to meet up with the French resistance and follow their orders http://articles.latimes.com/1998/oct/23/local/me-35295. Hjorth was supposedly hidden by the resistance until early on June 6th when he was brought to a "hiding place" on Omaha Beach. There he was left to wait with his cameras, after being told that he would know what to film. He survived the U.S. naval bombardment and shot several rolls of film of U.S. assault troops headed towards him and fighting their way ashore. The film is said to have been turned into a top secret documentary that has since vanished. Researchers have scoured various archives looking for the lost color footage but it has never been found. I'd love to see it but I suspect it never existed.With all the secrecy surrounding Operation Overlord, it wouldn't make much sense to drop an American into Normandy ahead of time just to take pictures. The risk of capture would be high & would alert the Germans even if Hjorth did not know any details of the invasion plan. And I seem to recall that no one in the Resistance knew the actual beach locations or exact date/time of the attack (which was postponed after Hjorth would have arrived in France). This NARA page suggests an alternative explanation for the secret documentary https://unwritten-record.blogs.archives.gov/2014/09/09/the-first-d-day-documentary/. It does not directly refute the Hjorth story but it does provide a reasonable account of an actual SHAEF documentary. I can't explain Hjorth's account, but memories are fallible.

 

3. Officer drops a satchel with film taken on Omaha overboard. I first heard about this from the documentary "Shooting War" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qL13OmyvBsw (40.00 mark). The story is that the Signal Corps photographers turned their film over to the beachmasters who gave it to a colonel who put it in a duffel bag. As the colonel was boarding a ship to bring the film back to England he dropped the bag into the Channel. This story sounds legit to me. It seems to be based on accounts from Signal Corps photographers who had landed on D-Day. But I'm curious if there are any period documents naming the officer or describing the loss of the film. Does anyone know of more details about this?

 

Tom

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very interesting about Capa as i always believed the story about the lost photos.

 

I guess thinking about it now with how much more we know about D-day and how crazy and chaotic it would have been at Omaha beach with the 2nd wave, even now with an iPhone you'd only get the chance to snap one or two pics without getting killed.

 

I

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Interesting topic.

 

I have heard the "film accidentally dropped overboard" story from a long time ago, and that always resonated with me.

 

I wonder if any of the stories are true, or if there is an element of historical fact that morphed into seperate tales over time....

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very interesting about Capa as i always believed the story about the lost photos.

 

As had I. I used to hope that the "melted" negatives still existed and that some of today's whiz-bang digital technology could bring some kind of image back but it seems like that will never happen. I still give Capa kudos for being there at all. And his handful of Omaha Beach pics are still a valuable, unique record of the 1st ID, 741st Tank Bn, and Gap Assault Team engineers at Easy Red.

 

I wonder if any of the stories are true, or if there is an element of historical fact that morphed into seperate tales over time....

 

I enjoyed seeing the detailed analysis of Capa's photos by Charles Herrick here http://www.nearbycafe.com/artandphoto/photocritic/2015/06/06/guest-post-17-charles-herrick-on-capas-d-day/

. The great thing about historical photos is that they provide information that memories and written accounts can't.

 

Tom

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...and some further & slightly differing analysis of the Capa photos http://www.strijdbewijs.nl/robert/capa1a.htm

. The author, Pieter Jutte, shows fairly convincingly IMO that Capa captured Army engineers setting demolition charges on a hedgehog obstacle and log obstacle. Jutte also goes to great lengths identifying the location where Capa took his photos.

 

Tom

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This has been a fascinating series of articles, form beginning to end. Thank you for introducing an interesting topic that i would have otherwise missed.

 

Adrian

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