| Original caption: “Survivors of sunken LCVP off the cost of France come safely ashore in a rubber life raft, at Omaha Beach.” After their Landing Craft Vehicle and Personnel (LCVP) foundered in heavy surf, United States Army 5th Engineers Special Brigade use a Landing Craft, Rubber, Small (LCRS) to bring survivors to Omaha Beach. Photograph by Private 1st Class Louis Weintraub (June 4, 1922 – September 13, 1991) of the 162nd Signal Photographic Company. From left to right: Unknown; United States Army 1st Lieutenant Walter Sidlowski (January 10, 1920 – August 5, 2014); 1st Lieutenant Morris W. Selfe (December 10, 1921 – August 13, 2014); Unknown; Unknown; Nicholas Russin (December 18, 1912 – July 21, 1997) Weintraub had landed on June 6, 1944, with Private 1st Class Walter Rosenblum (Oct 1, 1919 – January 23, 2006) and Technical Sergeant Val C. Pope (July 28, 1919 – August 25, 1944) and 3 others. Scheduled to land at H + 230 minutes, the team, known as Detachment P, was attached to the 5th Engineers Special Brigade. Aboard USS Henrico (APA-45), they watched the 1st wave depart. Rosenblum exposed a few low light shots by using a slow shutter speed as the wounded began to be brought back to the ship. The team next photographed men about to enter combat for the 1st time as the soldiers and officers of the 348th Engineer Combat Battalion descended rope ladders into the waiting Landing Craft Tank (LCT). Joining these men, the 5 cameramen (1 officer and 4 enlisted men) began their run into the beach. They were later unable to pinpoint the exact time of their landing, somewhere between the early morning and early afternoon, either on Omaha Beach “Fox Green” or “Easy Red.” They arrived as the “crack” German 352nd Division defended Omaha; Rosenblum recalled seeing the bodies of dead American soldiers drift past his Landing Craft, Tank (LCT) as he approached the beach. The water was red with blood. Detachment P took many photographs and entrusted the negatives to a United States Navy sailor headed back to the transport; their photographs and still frames were never seen again. 1st Lieutenant Morris W. Selfe, 348th Combat Battalion, 5th Engineers Special Brigade, of Birchwood, Minnesota, rode an LCVP onto Omaha Beach on June 6. A German 20 millimeter (0.78 inch) shell knocked out the steering. It missed Selfe by 18 inches (45 centimeters). On the beach, he raised flags to guide in more LCVPs. The Germans shot them out of his hands. Selfe worked to demolish enemy fortifications, helped pick up anti-personnel mines and cut gaps in barbed wire. Starting on June 6, United States Army 1st Lieutenant Walter Sidlowski, 348th Combat Battalion, 5th Engineers Special Brigade, supporting the 1st Infantry Division, continued to remove the wooden and steel obstacles on the beach. Most had mines attached, and they were entwined with barbed wire. Sidlowski and his men removed the mines and the wire and stacked the obstacles away from the exits off the beach. They worked all day June 6, only stopping to eat cold rations. The next day, ignorant of the loss of their previous hard work, Detachment P was somewhat comforted by the reduced level of incoming German fire. American soldiers began to remove helmets, less wary of artillery and snipers. Earlier on June 7, Private 1st Class Nicholas Russin, 5th Engineer Special Brigade, 4142nd Quartermaster Service Company, climbed down the rope ladders to board an LCVP to head to the beach. At age 32, he was older than most of the other soldiers in the unit. Enlisted on April 1, 1943, Russin transferred to the Quartermasters after punching an officer in his artillery unit. Russin recalled, “You knew this was it. You could feel the fear and intensity in the air. Men were silent. Some were praying. Some were panicking. It seemed like forever and we’re not even on the LCVP yet.” His mind may have eased a bit when he ran into a familiar face: Navy 2nd Class Signalman John Furka (March 21, 1923 – February 8, 2015). Both were from Lydora, Pennsylvania. In the same LCVP was 2nd Lieutenant George W. Carter, Jr. (August 30, 1921 – April 20, 2012). “We crossed the channel in ships that hauled tanks and trucks and stuff,” Carter recalled. “We crawled down cargo nets off the side of them into landing barges. And there was lots of us, and we just circled and circled, waiting until the rest of them got loaded. We was all seasick, throwing up, couldn’t help that.” On the morning of June 7, the sight of pure carnage was staggering. Debris, equipment, rubber rafts, corpses and body parts were strewn everywhere and continued to wash ashore. Selfe, Sidlowski and their 348th Combat Battalion, 5th Engineer Special Brigade team resumed their efforts to remove mines and obstacles in the surf, on the beach and up to the town of Colleville-Sur-Mer (now the site of the Normandy American Cemetery). German snipers and artillery fire remained a constant threat. Landing crafts continued to drop their ramps and deliver fresh troops, tanks, jeeps and supplies. About a dozen or more were inbound when Sidlowski noticed 1 stranded on a sandbar. It was 1 of 3 LCVPs about 75 to 200 yards away from shore, struggling in the choppy waters. At least 1 began to list and then sink. Men began swimming for their lives among the floating bodies and debris. The weight of their packs and equipment were too much for some to make it. Russin recalled, “I couldn’t believe it. I was going straight to the bottom. With about a hundred pounds of equipment on. I could see other guys going down,” said Russin, who stood about 5 foot 8 inches (1.72 meters). “I pushed off the bottom and came up. I was trying to get rid of the equipment weighing me down. As I popped up, I threw my helmet off, gasping for air. I took in sea water, went down again. I could see other men struggling. “The sailor that was driving the barge lowered the ramp and told us to go,” Carter said. “And all we could do was go then. We jumped off and the water wasn’t very deep.” Carter’s buddy, Private 1st Class Harold C. Brumm (May 1, 1923 – September 11, 1995) of Newark, New York, couldn’t swim and yelled for help. Carter recalled that he didn’t think Brumm had inflated the buoyant life belt all of the soldiers were wearing when they disembarked. Sidlowski and others saw what was happening. He and a group of others decided to act. “We swam out and took a few as we could each time and brought them back to shore. Somebody else got a long rope, which we swam out with, tied it on to the landing craft, had them hold onto the rope, and walk themselves in,” Sidlowski said. “We took as many as we could to swim in.” Selfe swam out to help rescue 24 soldiers stranded in a landing craft about 200 yards offshore. Then, he moved on to a 2nd LCVP and fastened a lifeline to the beach. A strong current forced him to swim in a direction to the side of the crafts, just so he could let the current pull him sideways to reach a 3rd stranded craft. Weintraub, Rosenblum, and Pope were drawn to the commotion developing in the waves; the Engineers were trying to rescue the men in the sinking LCVP. They came across the scene of a rescue led by Lieutenants Walter Sidlowski and Morris Selfe. Pope took motion picture footage while Rosenblum and Weintraub shot stills. Rosenblum watched as the young Lieutenant Sidlowski and Lieutenant Selfe and another man hopped into a rescue boat and rushed to the aid of 2 or 3 men trapped on a shelled landing craft that was going down. “I filmed the whole sequence: Getting into the boat, going out, rescuing the people, bringing them back into the boat, giving them first aid on the shore,” he said. The next frames in the film footage show Russin being pulled from the water by 1 of the soldiers who initially appeared at the rear of the raft. Russin is either struggling to breathe or muttering something to the men holding him up. He appears ready to vomit as the film cuts out. The photos ran as a series in the Army weekly magazine, Yank. Selfe said, “The experience of D-Day+1 and +2 was the roar and sound of artillery from our boats, German field artillery, nonstop machine gun fire, explosions of bombs and mines, the land crafts engines churning to get out, the silence of the men around you praying. The noise of the water crashing against the sides of the metal ramp.” Sidlowski and Selfe would receive the Bronze Star for their efforts that day. Sidlowksi’s citation includes: “The coolness, resourcefulness and heroism of Second Lieutenant Sidlowski in saving the lives of some of these men reflects high credit upon himself and upon the military service.” Rosenblum’s exceptional career as a photographer during the war was interrupted on September 20, 1944, when Technical Sergeant Pope – 1 of the Detachment P’s 2 cameramen – was killed by a German machine gun. Rosenblum took his place. Sergeant Pope had been in England on leave a short time before. In a London cinema Pope had seen, as part of a newsreel, the video of the D-Day rescue that he himself had filmed. Rosenblum, Weintraub and others of the team congratulated him – after all they had all documented the same event! Walter Rosenblum was a photographer for 50 years, as well as an important figure in the advancement of 20th century photography. When he was 18 years old he joined the Photo League, later becoming chair of the exhibition committee, the editor of the organization’s journal, Photo Notes, and president of the League. After D-Day, his 6-man Signal Corps camera team was attached to various combat units fighting in France, Germany and Austria; filmed General Patton’s advance across France and Germany; he took some of the 1st motion picture footage of the Dachau concentration camp. Rosenblum was 1 of the most decorated World War II photographers, receiving the Silver Star, Bronze Star, 5 battle stars, the Purple Heart and a Presidential Unit Citation. The Simon Wiesenthal Center has honored him as a liberator of Dachau. His photographic career spanned major events of the 20th century; he photographed the immigrant experience in America on New York’s Lower East Side, World War II, Spanish Civil War Refugees, East Harlem, Haiti and the South Bronx. Rosenblum had an extensive teaching career, beginning in 1947 at Brooklyn College (CUNY). He also taught at the Yale Summer School of Art and at The Cooper Union, as well as at the Rencontre de La Photographie in Arles, France, at Centro Di Ricerca Ed Archiviazione, Spilimbergo, Italy, and in São Paolo, Brazil. In 1980, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship for his project “People of the South Bronx.” Together with his wife, renowned photographic historian Naomi Rosenblum (January 16, 1925 – February 19, 2021), he curated international exhibitions including the ground-breaking 1977 Lewis Hine Retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum. In 1998, he received the Infinity award for Lifetime Achievement from the International Center of Photography. His photographs are represented in more than 40 international collections including the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Library of Congress, the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Weintraub, a native of Montreal, Canada, documented the Allied drive across France and Germany. He became a public relations executive at Weintraub and FitzSimons Incorporated and Photo Communications Incorporated after the war. He died of a heart attack at his home in Jericho, New York. Sidlowski left the United States Army at the war’s end as a Captain in the 1st Infantry Division – The Big Red 1. After the Army he served as a member of New York Police Department for 22 years from 1947 to 1969, as a detective in the 23rd Precinct in East Harlem. He served as Assistant Head of Security of Columbia University for 10 years from 1972 to 1982. He was awarded the French Legion of Honor Medal. Private 1st Class Nicholas Russin would see Seaman John Furka 1 more time in Europe. They ran into each other in London after Germany surrendered. Russin was discharged in January, 1946, at Fort Indiantown Gap in Lebanon County, after the War in Europe ended. He returned home to Lyndora, Pennsylvania, to his wife. Russin eased back into civilian life. He worked in a furniture factory in Etna, then, found some stability and spent the next 34 years at the Pullman Standard Car Company Forge Shop. His buddy John Furka also worked at Pullman Standard. Russin retired in 1982. Selfe returned to Colorado and gave an interview to the Pagosa Springs newspaper about his wartime exploits. Sidlowski, because he appeared in more photos, received more attention through the years. He and Sidlowski, a fellow Brooklynite, became lifelong friends after meeting on the beach that day. | |
| Image Filename | wwii1825.jpg |
| Image Size | 184.30 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 1763 x 1262 |
| Photographer | Walter Rosenblum |
| Photographer Title | United States Army Signal Corps |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | June 7, 1944 |
| Location | |
| City | Omaha Beach |
| State or Province | Normandy |
| Country | France |
| Archive | National Archives and Records Administration |
| Record Number | 111-SC-190239-S |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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