We haven’t merely read and heard about the Normandy landings of 6 June 1944, when allied troops arrived on the coast of northern France to begin a push across occupied Europe that would help to defeat the Nazis. We can see exactly what that day looked like: the barges crammed with soldiers, the jagged log posts and asterisk-shaped steel barriers sticking out of the low-tide water, the men wading, stumbling and running up the beaches under heavy fire from the clifftops. The images are available, but somebody had to capture them. D-Day: Secrets of the Frontline Heroes, a straightforward but rewarding documentary about the American film-makers and photographers who sailed with the armed forces, tells us who to thank.
It follows four men. John Ford, the celebrated Hollywood film director (Stage Coach, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance), was employed by the Field Photographic Branch of the Office of Strategic Services, the intelligence-gathering forerunner of the CIA. George Stevens, who made pictures starring Fred Astaire and Cary Grant and who won Academy awards for best director twice in the 1950s – for Giant and A Place in the Sun – was with Gen Dwight D Eisenhower’s Special Coverage Unit. Jack Lieb was a photographer and reporter for newsreel company News of the Day. Sgt Richard Taylor was a combat photographer with the 165th Signal Photographic Company of the US army Signal Corps.
