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June 06, 2015

71st anniversary of D-Day.

On June 6, 1944, 160,000 troops from America, Canada, Britain, Canada and Poland landed on a 50-mile stretch of the Normandy coast of France. D-Day was the first day of Operation Overlord, which ended on August 30. Over 29,000 troops were killed in the engagement. Hungarian war photographer Robert Capa (1913-1954) asked to be amongst the first wave on the Normandy beach. Below is one the eleven Capa photographs of the fighting on Omaha Beach which survive, most taken right after landing. The helmeted GI in the water was identified as Private Huston S. Riley, who survived the war and died at age 90 in a Seattle hospital in 2011. Capa was also half-submerged and under fire when he took Hu Riley's photograph. He took another 100 photographs in the next 90 minutes--but they were ruined before being developed back in America. Capa died in 1954 in Vietnam covering the First Indochina War. He was 40.

Capa Omaha Beach.jpg


Posted by JD Hull at June 6, 2015 08:27 AM

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