Hugh Riley: Real Subject of Robert Capa's Famous D-Day Photo

June 5, 2009 By: Marshall Cutchin

Last night on NBC News Tom Brokaw fly fished off of the Mercer Island dock of Hugh Riley, the subject of his story on the discovery of who was the real subject of Robert Capa’s famous D-Day image of a soldier struggling in the Normandy surf. Riley was hit four times and dragged to shore by Capa and another soldier. After the war, Brokaw noted, Riley “returned to Seattle, and worked for a fly rod company.”
This morning Brokaw told me that his subject was in fact Fenwick’s “man in the North,” and that he told Brokaw during their interview that “his Washington state outdoors childhood saved him,” because he was comfortable in water.