For many years the soldier in the most well-known of the photographs was identified as Edward Regan. Another soldier, Huston Riley, has also been put forward. Riley himself remembers meeting a photographer who helped him out of the water: "I was surprised to see him there. I saw the press badge and I thought, 'What the hell is he doing here? He helped me out of the water and then he took off down the beach for some more photos." The combat engineer behind the hedgehog is believed to be James E. Terrell, who remembered Capa pointing a camera at him, as the man next to Terrell was alive in the first photo and was killed by the second photo. More recent identification of the specific section of beach where the pictures were taken suggests that Regan and Riley were on different beach sections.
