On 6 June 1944, the Allied forces opened up a second front in Normandy to liberate France from the German occupation. 90,000 Allied troops landed on the Omaha Beach, codename for Coleville-Sur-Mer. Many were killed by German troops but the Allies managed to defeat the Germans, thus liberating France in the coming months.
Robert Capa, a war correspondent and photographer for LIFE magazine, landed with E Company of the 16th Regiment, 1st Infantry Division on Easy Red Sector of Omaha Beach to photograph the landing. For 90 minutes during the first wave of landings, Capa used four rolls of 35mm film to take his 106 photos which he delivered to a darkroom assistant for development. Unfortunately, too much heat was used to dry the negatives, the emulsions melted and ran down. Only eleven photographs survived. Here are nine.
Photos by Robert Capa / Magnum Photos
A GI surveys the wreckage of German planes in Tunisia - May 1943
Photo by Hart Preston for LIFE Magazine
Interesting find of the day:
- A 12 October 1942 issue of Life featuring the war effort on the Homefront in southern California.
- A 2 July 1945 issue of Life featuring photos from V-E Day, Eisenhower coming home, American forces in Guam and US Army photos at the Eagle’s Nest.
The one and only, Robert Capa, pauses for a smoke while on assignment in Tunisia as a combat photographer and correspondent for LIFE Magazine - 1943
A German casualty on D-Day; France - 6 June 1944
Photo by Bob Landry for LIFE Magazine
life:
American combat engineers eat a meal atop boxes of ammunition stockpiled for the impending D-Day invasion, May 1944.
On the anniversary of D-Day, see Frank Scherschel’s photographs from before and after D-Day in masterfully restored color here.
On 6 June 1944, the Allied forces opened up a second front in Normandy to liberate France from the German occupation. 90,000 Allied troops landed on the Omaha Beach, codename for Coleville-Sur-Mer. Many were killed by German troops but the Allies managed to defeat the Germans, thus liberating France in the coming months.
Robert Capa, a war correspondent and photographer for LIFE magazine, landed with the 16th Regiment of the 1st Infantry Division on Omaha Beach to photograph the landing. For 90 minutes during the first wave of landings, Capa used four rolls of 35mm film which were to be rushed back to London to make the deadline for the next issue of LIFE. Unfortunately, all but 11 images were destroyed. Four of the images are shown here.
Photos by Robert Capa / Magnum Photos
life:
Here, on the 50th anniversary of his May 31, 1962, execution by hanging in Israel after a 14-week war-crimes trial, LIFE.com presents pictures of Eichmann in prison: raw, strangely intimate photographs by Gjon Mili chronicling the “arch war criminal” (as LIFE put it) engaged in the most quotidian of pursuits — reading, writing, washing, eating — all the while fully aware, as most of the world was fully aware, that what awaited him at the end of the trial was a noose at the end of a rope.
Pictured: Adolf Eichmann awaits trial in Israel, 1961.
See more of the photos here on LIFE.com.
