Slightly Out Of Focus

Robert Capa

• Publisher: Lucknow Books
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781786256409
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

In 1942, a dashing young man who liked nothing so much as a heated game of poker, a good bottle of scotch, and the company of a pretty girl hopped a merchant ship to England. He was Robert Capa, the brilliant and daring photojournalist, and Collier's magazine had put him on assignment to photograph the war raging in Europe. In these pages, Capa recounts his terrifying journey through the darkest battles of World War II and shares his memories of the men and women of the Allied forces who befriended, amused, and captivated him along the way. His photographs are masterpieces — John G. Morris, Magnum Photos' first executive editor, called Capa "the century's greatest battlefield photographer" — and his writing is by turns riotously funny and deeply moving.From Sicily to London, Normandy to Algiers, Capa experienced some of the most trying conditions imaginable, yet his compassion and wit shine on every page of this book. Charming and profound, Slightly Out of Focus is a marvelous memoir told in words and pictures by an extraordinary man.—Print Ed.

VII—FALL 1943

The Sicilian campaign was over, and I was shipped back to Algiers. The main press headquarters was bustling with activity, and in the briefing room—where the official handout was usually read to a handful of press agency men—I found an impressive gallery of well-known byliners. The speedy conquest of Sicily together with the impending invasion of the mainland of Europe had brought them tearing over from their desks in America in one hell of a hurry.

The room was buzzing with speculation as to when and where the Big Thing would take place. Talk about airpower, soft underbellies, and extended supply lines filled the air, but it failed to impress my quinine-stuffed head, and I decided to beat it. I wanted a room to myself with a great big bed. I wanted a bathtub and fresh towels, and a buzzer to summon a waiter.

There were only two large hotels in Algiers. On the hilltop was the St. George, which served as Eisenhower’s military headquarters. The second was the Aletti, overlooking the harbor. It was reserved for visiting generals from the front, for diplomats and war correspondents, for important Free French and the still important Vichy French, and for very high-class ladies of dubious occupation.

When I reached the Aletti, the billeting sergeant gave me—instead of a room key—a well-rehearsed little speech. In November of 1942, he said, there were only twenty-two accredited war correspondents in Algiers, and the town major had allotted them ten rooms in the hotel. Now, however, in August of 1943, there were about a hundred and fifty accredited correspondents, and still the same ten rooms. I started to argue with him. He answered with a shrug. The rooms were on the third floor, he said, and I could try my luck.

My chances of getting a bed to myself had vanished, but I still had hopes for the tub and the buzzer. I went from room to room, asking to share a bed, pleading for a share of the floor space, but all in vain. Not only was every bed occupied, but every square foot of floor space was covered with a cot or a bedroll, all crowded side by side. Even the few balconies had been commandeered.

I parked myself and my bedroll in an empty corner in the lobby, and sat lost in dejection. At this point, the 230-pound hulk of my old boss Quentin Reynolds turned up. He was glad to hear that I had gotten a job, and told me not to worry about a room. Coming over from England, he had made friends with a meek little man representing something called the British Council. The B.C. must have been quite important, because the little man had been given a room with two beds and a balcony all for himself. Quent was using the second bed, and was quite sure that his little friend wouldn’t object to a friendly Hungarian taking up a small part of the floor.

That night, when the little man came home, he discovered me stretched on his floor. He apologized for waking me, and hoped I was quite comfortable. I mumbled that I was and went back to sleep instantly.

Next morning, we were awakened by Clark Lee, the handsomest of all foreign correspondents, who was as famous for his reporting as for his escape from Bataan. He was slightly less handsome that morning, his face swollen by a badly infected tooth. He pointed with one hand to his face, with the other to the bed. The meek little B.C. gentleman obligingly got out, and the moaning Clark crawled in.

In the evening, the B.C. man retrieved his bed. Just as we were getting settled, the door opened and Jack Belden, the sweetest and also sourest tempered of the correspondents, walked in. He silently undid his bedroll, and crawled in to sleep. We felt that our host had a word of explanation coming, and offered that Jack had been with Stilwell in the retreat from Burma.

Ernie Pyle came in around midnight. He was the shyest of men. All the rest of us were rather big fellows, he apologized, but his slim presence would hardly be noticed.

That seemed plenty for one night, but we were due to be awakened once more. The visitors this time were a dozen German planes, flying low, and dropping their bombs a few hundred yards from our window. We stayed where we were, but put on our helmets. The gentleman of the B.C. had no helmet, however, and decided he would feel safer under the bed. Clark Lee didn’t mind, and for the rest of the night he was back in a bed again.

The next day we were still waiting for a call from Public Relations. We sat around the room a bit bored, just a bit scared, and chewed the fat about the Big Move. John Steinbeck and H. R. “Red” Knickerbocker dropped in along about afternoon, with three bottles of Algerian schnapps. They thought it would help Clark Lee’s headache, they said. The stuff tasted like hell, but we couldn’t see Clark drink it by himself. So we pitched in and helped empty the bottles before the awful stuff could kill him. In the meanwhile, Steinbeck and Knickerbocker were quietly undoing their bedrolls out on the balcony.

From then on, each morning found some new addition to our ménage. From the balcony, we could see the harbor clearly. Every day more and more ships were loaded with troops, guns, and planes. The empty spaces between the large ships were gradually filled with dozens of small invasion barges. The Big When was coming closer.

Just about the time when there was no longer any space to walk between the bodies in our room, we got our call to report to headquarters. We packed our helmets and our bedrolls, bid farewell to our little host, and left him sad and all alone in the empty room.

* * * *

We piled into PR headquarters. Lieutenant Colonel Joe Phillips, the head PR, called us into his office one by one. We were told nothing about the operation, only that from now on we would be “isolated.” One by one, we were assigned to our divisions. When my turn came, Phillips said, “Capa, I’m convinced that you’re a born paratrooper.” I protested that I was a born Hungarian. He laughed. “I think we’d better stick to the first version.”

A few hours later, I was delivered to the airfield at Kairouan. I had been there about six weeks earlier, and the planes and gliders were lined up in exactly the same formation as before. Now, however, there were little white parachutes painted on the noses of the C-47’s—one parachute for each mission over enemy territory.

Chris was expecting me, and greeted me on my arrival. “Congratulations. I hear you got the job and you’re fully legal. How is Pinky?”

I answered that I had no troubles of any kind. He was disappointed. “You’re just as boring as any other newspaperman,” he said. “But I have news for you. Si Korman of the Chicago Tribune is here, and his poker is even worse than yours.”

I played just as badly as ever, but by midnight I had everyone’s money. Getting up from the table, Chris complained about my exceptional luck. There could be only one explanation, he said. Pinky was having a good time.

The following day, Chris had to fly over to Cairo. I gave him the poker money and asked him to buy me five pairs of silk stockings and a bottle of the best French perfume. He accepted the commission, but didn’t think it would help me.

Thirty-six hours later, Chris was back with the stuff. I sent it off to Pinky with a note. Before the stockings were gone, I promised, I would be back in London.

The days passed slowly in the hot Tunisian desert. There was still no sign of D-Day. The 82d Airborne and 9th Troop Carrier headquarters were enveloped in top secrecy and the planning rooms were barred to unclassified personnel.

We were tired of waiting in the sun and were impatient for the day we would be told to jump. Finally the day came—but instead of boarding our planes, we were ordered aboard a lot of LCI’s that were waiting in nearby Gafsa harbor.

For two days we zigzagged up and down the Mediterranean. Then we abruptly changed course and landed in the harbor of Licata, in Sicily. The jump was on again, and the planes of the 9th TCC had already been transferred from Kairouan to the Licata airfield.

Chris was there too, and had a pressroom ready for us. The big brass had taken over the Licata high school, and the PR was established in the laboratory. Surrounded by glass beakers, skeletons, and stuffed birds, Dick Tregaskis, of the INS, typed glowing pre-invasion stories which never passed the censor, and Korman and I played two-handed poker on a tilted blackboard.

The airborne division, alerted for action, camped in an olive grove just behind the Licata airfield. Licata, the town made famous by John Hersey in his book A Bell for Adano, did not yet have a bell, but there was plenty of fish and sour wine. The evening was cool in the open camp, the sky full of stars and mosquitoes, and fresh rumors circulated freely under the olive trees.

The next morning, Brigadier General Taylor, of the 82d Airborne, asked if anyone could lend him a money belt. I remembered the story told about General Mark Clark, who had arrived secretly on the coast of North Africa to prepare the way for the African invasion. Surprised by gendarmes as he landed on the beach, he had lost both his trousers and millions of francs of bribe money in the ensuing scuffle.

I offered General Taylor the money belt which I had acquired with the change in my poker luck, and asked him if he intended losing only his trousers.

The general took my belt with the comment that newspapermen talk too much.

Two days later, the camp broke into feverish activity. We were ordered to check our equipment and pack our things. I was asked to report to General Ridgway, the commanding general, at his tent.

“Capa,” he said to me, “you’re going to have dinner in Rome tonight. General Taylor is there now, and the armistice with the Italians has been signed.”

Our airborne troops were going to occupy both the airfield and the city of Rome that night. “Marshal Badoglio has assured us he will have the airfield free from the Germans, secure for our landing.” He went on to explain that the Fifth Army would land at Salerno, south of Naples, the following morning.

This would be one of the big scoops of the war. While the rest of the photographers were taking pictures of a dreary beach and maybe a few local mayors, I would catch Mussolini at home. And by the time my colleagues reached Rome, I would be firmly established in the best hotel in Italy, calling the bartender by his first name.

I returned to my bedroll and changed from my jumpsuit to a pair of pink trousers and a gabardine shirt. A little while later I was sitting in General Ridgway’s lead plane, ready for the take-off.

Our motors were w...

Table of contents

• Title page
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• I-SUMMER 1942
• II
• III
• IV-SPRING 1943
• V
• VI
• VII-FALL 1943
• VIII
• IX-SUMMER 1944
• X
• XI
• XII
• XIII
• XIV-SPRING 1945
• XV