This country is at war with Germany.

We shall go on to the end.

I remember the sheets of flame which came up and almost blinded us from our guns.

On the morning of 6th of June 1944,

war photographer Robert Kappa waded ashore beach during the Allied landings in Normandy.

What happened next became the stuff of legend. Under withering fire, Kappa supposedly captured over 100 photographs of the chaos and courage of D-Day, only for all but 11 to be lost in a dark room accident.

These surviving images, the so-called Magnificent Eleven, helped define the visual memory of D-Day and cemented Kappa's reputation as the greatest

war photographer of the 20th century. But what if the story we've long accepted isn't entirely true?

In his book, Back Into Focus, the real story of Robert Kappa's D-Day, Charles Herrick takes

a forensic look at the events of

that day. Unraveling inconsistencies in Kappa's own account and challenging the myths that

have grown around his legacy. Drawing on official military records, eyewitness testimony and

detailed photo analysis, Herrick offers a new and at times

controversial perspective on one of the most iconic moments in photo journalism history.

Well, I'm delighted to welcome Charles to the podcast today to talk about what really happened

on D-Day, how the legend of Robert Kappa was built, and what his findings

mean for how we understand both history and heroism. Thanks for joining me, Charles. I think

we should start with Kappa. I'm sure not everyone will have heard of him. For those who are

unfamiliar with Robert Kappa, who was he? His popular reputation is of the greatest war photographer

of the world. And he covered the Spanish Civil War initially. He then went to China and covered

part of the Chinese War against the Japanese. He returned back to Spain for the Spanish Civil

War.

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