--- title: The Iconic Photo of D-Day | TIME description: Robert Capa's LIFE photos of the invasion of Normandy -- and a lone soldier near the beach -- are icons of WWII, and were almost destroyed canonical: https://time.com/video/PohPLQUq/ og:title: The Iconic Photo of D-Day og:description: Robert Capa's LIFE photos of the invasion of Normandy -- and a lone soldier near the beach -- are icons of WWII, and were almost destroyed og:url: https://time.com/video/PohPLQUq/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/PohPLQUq/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Iconic Photo of D-Day twitter:description: Robert Capa's LIFE photos of the invasion of Normandy -- and a lone soldier near the beach -- are icons of WWII, and were almost destroyed twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/PohPLQUq/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # The Iconic Photo of D-Day > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: The Iconic Photo of D-Day [Watch (HLS stream): The Iconic Photo of D-Day](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/PohPLQUq.m3u8) (4:56)  _Published 2009-06-05. Robert Capa's LIFE photos of the invasion of Normandy -- and a lone soldier near the beach -- are icons of WWII, and were almost destroyed_ --- Jul 27, 2023 1:10 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Nurse In Iconic V-J Day Photo Passed Away](/video/yWsu6o7j/) ### Nurse In Iconic V-J Day Photo Passed Away [Behind the Iconic Tank Man Photo](/video/9ktJjcpE/) ### Behind the Iconic Tank Man Photo [The Iconic Photo of FDR](/video/DFiQo2H5/) ### The Iconic Photo of FDR --- ## Transcript >> That soldier in that picture I think really does start to stand out as an emblem of the American Military. >> The eye of world are pointed. The hopes and prayers of liberty- loving people everywhere march with you. >> Robert Capa was probably the most famous war photographer in the 20th century. D- Day was the moment where the American soldiers turned the tide of World War II. It was that moment when the Allied Forces started to gain the upper hand against the Germans. To Capa, on the very early morning of the 6th, was part of, they believe, the second wave, second group of the first wave going in onto Omaha beach. >> The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men's souls will be shaken with the violences of war. >> It was a very chaotic day. The winds were terrible. There was mass confusion. Soldiers were trying to meet each other on the beach. And meet with commanders, missed each other because of the-- of the winds and the waves were pushing people into different directions. So Capa was shooting with his camera through all of these. In testimony from other people and in letters, he was terrified, very scared, dodging bullets like all the rest of the soldiers as they were getting up on the beach. Another soldier came up to help this soldier that was wounded, and the two of them pulled the soldier right up on the beach, and I think during that time or right before it, he took several photographs, or at least one photograph, and that one photograph is probably now the most iconic photograph of the landing, as it epitomizes what we know of the bravery of the men who were there. >> He has now been identified as Houston Riley, who now lives in Portland, Oregon, near Portland, and Houston remembers being pulled up on the beach. He said he looked up, and he saw one soldier and a man with a press insignia, and he said to himself, " What is that man doing on the beach ?" I think it's a classic Capa photograph in the sense that it captures so much in the environment in which he was photographing. You see a bit of the water and the waves coming up around the soldier. You see that soldier's face, or just the barest glimpse of the outline of his profile to just-- to get a sense of the human component of the story, which is really what Capa did so tremendously in so many of the situations he photographed. Capa photographed about it, I wanna have, I believe on the beach. There was a soldier assigned to pick up all the film from the beach and put into a pack and then transport it back to the ships. And that pack was lost. So the only film that survived were actually the films that weren't picked up by the personnel who was assigned to that, including Capa's. In the excitement to get the film prepared for exposure, the heat went up in the drying rack and the emulsion literally melted off the plastic film. So, what was left were these 11 images of just the invasion moment, the soldiers climbing up on the beach. >> Almighty God, our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor. A struggle to preserve our republic, our religion, and our civilization. ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"The Iconic Photo of D-Day","description":"Robert Capa's LIFE photos of the invasion of Normandy -- and a lone soldier near the beach -- are icons of WWII, and were almost destroyed","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/PohPLQUq/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2009-06-05T22:41:07.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/PohPLQUq.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/video/PohPLQUq/","duration":"PT4M56S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/video/PohPLQUq/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}} ```