THIS INVASION WAS D4FFERENT

Robert Capa, war-going LIFE photographer, parachuted into Germany last week with the U.S. 17th Airborne Division. Two nights later he turned up in Paris, bone-weary, unshaven, still clad in a dirty paratroop uniform. At the apartment of TIME'S chief military correspondent, Charles Christian Wertenbaker, Mr. Capa consented to eat some ham and eggs and beefsteak and bread and butter and cheese and cake, and to drink some coffee and burgundy and champagne and cognac. Between swallows he explained what it was like.

"This was the first invasion of my life where nobody was puking. I waited for it but nobody did it. We left from somewhere in France. Everybody left from all over. It was very funny, the ride with this terrific armada over France and Belgium. Fifteen minutes before I had to jump I started thinking over my life. I went over everything I ever ate and did and I finished up in twelve minutes. I had three minutes left so I started to read a book by Eric Linklater.

"We dropped at 1025, four miles north of the Rhine. Our plane was a hell of a lot hit before we got out of it. Those troop-carrier command boys deserve a hell of a lot of credit. They have to drop their men at 600 feet and that is too low for them to get out themselves and so they have to turn around and nurse that plane back and sometimes they do and sometimes they don't, but they always drop their sticks of men. The Germans had small arms and small antiaircraft fire but compared to the Normandy defenses the defenses of the Rhine were definitely nonexisting. If the Germans could have put in 20 tanks they could have murdered the gliders. They knew we were coming but they had no defenses.

"I jumped with three cameras and a canteen of Scotch and I pointed out to myself that the canteen was very important. The other guys jumped out yelling 'Umbriago!' which is what you yell now, but I was yelling 'one thousand' because if your parachute does not open you are to yell 'one thousand, two thousand, three thousand' before you pull the string. The moment between your jump and land is 24 hours in any man's life. I had time to figure out six or seven things before I hit--one thing was that there is no future in this paratroop business.

"The most amazing thing I ever saw is the way everybody just lays on the ground when they get down. It seemed like two minutes and everybody was just laying there. The first thing is a certain relief. You are down, you are not hurt. You are reluctant to start the next phase. There were some paratroopers hanging in the trees and they were murdered by the Germans. They were shot twenty times. It is fine in practice if you land in a tree but if there is a guy with a gun shooting at you you are a dead duck. I started getting out of my harness. Then somebody started shooting at me and I started a beautiful long Hungarian swear. The guy next to me said: 'Don't start those Jewish prayers now. They won't do you any more good.'

"It was 20 minutes before I had a chance to smoke and it was 1210 before I had a swig of whiskey. After that we were busy all day. At 1830 I finished and went to look for the CP. I found General Ridgway and Miley, the divisional commander, playing Big Indians. They were cleaning out the woods and crawling around on their hands and knees like they were lieutenants and having a hell of a lot of fun. I went to bed in my parachute and dreamt that LIFE said this was a fine story and I could go back skiing.

"It seems to me that the last days of the war were in the battle of Bastogne. Those kind of slow-moving businesses afterwards when we moved up the Rhine finished the German Army. And much as I hate to make primitive statements, the Germans are the meanest bastards. They are the meanest during an operation and afterwards they all have a cousin in Philadelphia. That is what I like about the French. They do not have cousins in Philadelphia."

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