D-Day
Photographer: Robert Capa
Date: June 6, 1944
Location: Omaha Beach, Normandy, France
Robert Capa photographed the first wave of American troops landing at Omaha Beach during the D-Day invasion of Normandy, France, on June 6, 1944. Capa landed with the first assault wave of Company E, 16th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division and photographed soldiers wading through water and sheltering behind obstacles under heavy German fire. He described the experience in his memoir 'Slightly Out of Focus.' Of the approximately 106 frames Capa shot that morning, only 11 survived — a Life magazine darkroom assistant named Dennis Banks overheated the film while trying to rush the negatives dry, melting the emulsion on all but 11 frames. The surviving images, slightly blurry due to the heat damage (not camera motion as sometimes reported), appeared in Life magazine on June 19, 1944. They remain the most important photographic record of the D-Day landings. Capa was awarded the Medal of Freedom by the U.S. Army in 1945.
← Explore all photos on the map
