Category: War
Over the course of 10 days in late May and early June of 1940, British military and civilian vessels evacuated 338,226 Allied troops from the beaches of Dunkirk in Western France. The Dunkirk operation has been described as the most effective military evacuation in human history.
Had the Dunkirk evacuation failed, the entirety of Europe might yet be paying taxes to Berlin, even today. More than any other singular moment in history, during this time the fate of Western civilization teetered precipitously. Success meant survival. Failure would have plunged the world into darkness.
RELATED VIDEO: First Full Trailer Released for Christopher Nolan’s World War II Film
Heinz Guderian’s Blitzkrieg or Lightning War was the precursor to the modern concept of combined arms warfare. This synergistic combination of tanks, infantry, artillery, and air power formed a coordinated mobile force that circumvented traditional battlefield obstacles to seize terrain by means of mobility, shock effect, and violence of action. As a result, the Germans overran most of Europe in just a few short weeks.
The infantry weapons each major combatant power used during this early phase of World War II reflected the relative importance that nation put on its military readiness. The British, thoroughly wearied after seeing hundreds of thousands of its troops ground up in the fetid trenches of World War I, were equipped primarily with the weapons they used during this earlier conflict. The Germans, by contrast, sent the Wehrmacht into battle with the finest infantry arms the state of the art could provide.
With the Christopher Nolan-directed film “Dunkirk” hitting theater screens this weekend, we’ve decided to examine the guns used in the evacuation.
Submachine Guns
When the British entered World War II, they did not have an indigenous submachine gun. The Sten was still in development during the Dunkirk evacuation. Early on and desperate for weapons the British purchased as many 1928 Thompsons as the Maguire Company could produce. Russell Maguire acquired the struggling Auto-Ordnance Corporation just in time to take advantage of World War II and got rich as a result.
While the Thompson was technically obsolete by 1940, it was the only proven submachine gun available in quantity. The Thompson, while powerful and effective, was heavy, expensive, and difficult to build en masse.
By contrast, the German MP40 was the world’s first truly modern submachine gun. Produced via industrial stamping and eschewing wooden stocks completely, the MP40 ushered in a new era of utilitarian industrial gunmaking.
The MP40 is front heavy but reliable and imminently controllable in action. Its folding steel stock renders the gun compact for transport. Generations of mass-produced Infantry weapons stemmed from the sorts of industrial processes initially perfected in the manufacturing of the MP40.
Handguns
The British employed a variety of handguns produced both at home and abroad throughout World War II. However, at the time of the Dunkirk evacuation Webley and Enfield revolvers predominated. Though relatively antiquated, these robust wheelguns were optimized for combat. Their break action design made for relatively fast reloading, while their double-action triggers offered rapid target engagement.
In 1940, the Nazis issued a mixed bag of P08 Luger and P38 handguns, as well as a variety of lesser models. The P08 was an antiquated World War I-era pistol that was meticulously executed, yet overly susceptible to battlefield grime as a result. The P08 exhibited the rakish grip-to-frame angle ultimately made popular in the modern Glock handgun.
The P38 was a thoroughly advanced design that introduced the world to the single action/double action autoloading pistol. Reliable, safe, and effective, the only real shortcomings of the P38 were its eight-round single column magazine and its heel-mounted magazine release. The P38 was adequate to soldier on in Austrian service until replaced by the Glock in 1982.
Rifles
The British entered the war armed predominantly with the Short-Magazine Lee-Enfield, also left over from the previous war. Feeding from a 10-round box magazine, the SMLE bolt-action rifle cocked on closing and subsequently offered an impressive rate of fire in trained hands. The rimmed .303 cartridge that the SMLE fired was dated yet offered long range and reliable function.
The German Karabiner 98k was itself an evolutionary development of the earlier Gewehr 98. Its 7.92x57mm rimless round was a generation advanced from the British .303 and offered comparable range. Adopted in 1935 and the last in a long line of Mauser bolt-action rifles, the Kar98k was relatively lightweight and portable compared to its forebears. By the standards of the day it was a state-of-the-art bolt action infantry rifle.
Machine Guns
The British Vickers belt-fed machine gun was based upon the same action that drove the MG08 Maxim gun the Germans used to such great effect in the trenches of World War I. Designed by American inventor Hiram Stevens Maxim, this basic action spilled blood by the vat on both sides of no-man’s land during the Great War.
The Vickers, a water-cooled design, offered unparalleled durability and massive volumes of sustainable fire at the expense of portability and excessive weight. The Vickers gun was fired from either a tripod or fixed mount.
The Lewis gun was designed by an American Army officer named Isaac Newton Lewis in 1911 and by 1940 was hopelessly obsolete. Fed from a top-mounted drum magazine carrying either 47 or 97 rounds and driven by an unusual clockwork spring, the Lewis gun is easily recognized by its large tubular barrel shroud. Though difficult to maintain in the filth of combat, the Lewis did offer a portability not previously available from heavier water-cooled belt-fed designs.
The BREN gun was arguably the finest light machine gun of the war. A license-produced copy of the Czech ZGB-33, the Bren chugged along at a sedate rate of fire of around 500 rpm. Firing from the open bolt and feeding from top-mounted 30-round box magazines, the BREN gave the dismounted infantry squad a portable base of automatic fire that could maneuver with dismounted ground forces.
Though heavy by today’s standards, the BREN was rugged and dependable. Individual British soldiers typically carried spare BREN magazines that could be consolidated with the BREN gunner as needed.
The German MG34 was a seminal firearm. As the world’s first GPMG (General Purpose Machine Gun), the MG34 could be fired off of its integral bipod and used by infantry units on the assault or from fixed mounts for longer range engagements. The MG34 also served as a standard vehicular-mounted machine gun, as well as an effective close range antiaircraft gun.
The MG34 was air cooled with a quick-change barrel that could be readily exchanged by the gunner. It fired from the open bolt via non-disintegrating linked belts of ammunition. Multiple belts could be hooked together as needed, though a small drum carried a standard 50-round belt on the gun when used in the dismounted role. The MG34 cycled quickly at around 900 rounds per minute, though that paled alongside the 1,200-rpm MG42 that eventually supplemented it.
The MG34 was a meticulously well-built weapon that was as a result expensive and a bit finicky in action. However, the MG34 was the first infantry machine gun to serve in multiple roles via a single versatile chassis. This same basic concept drives the GPMGs of every major military in the world today.
Dunkirk Ruminations
The British Expeditionary Force escaped the Dunkirk beaches largely intact but without most of their weapons. As a result, the British nation was desperate to re-equip its force quickly. This desperation led to the Sten submachine gun and simplified Lee-Enfield No. 4 Mk 1. The industrial might of the United States eventually intervened, tipping the scales with the Lend-Lease program. This massive undertaking put British troops into American Sherman tanks and jeeps for their push back across the channel into Europe and eventually to Germany itself.
The Nazis, for all their moral depravity, produced both superb engineers and soldiers. The engineering advances spawned by the Germans during World War II brought us the assault rifle, the GPMG, the modern combat submarine, and the jet-powered fighter plane. Their small arms at the time of the Dunkirk evacuation were, for the most part, a generation ahead of those of the Allies.
Dunkirk saved the British Army. The subsequent deterrent effect of the intact British Army along with the RAF’s victory over the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain combined to cancel Operation Sea Lion, the planned German amphibious invasion of England. This hard-won victory preserved Great Britain as the Unsinkable Aircraft Carrier from which Allied forces staged to retake the European continent from the Nazis four years later.
For 10 days in 1940 the fate of the planet turned on the grit and fortitude of British soldiers, sailors, airmen, and civilians. Under conditions of unimaginable deprivation, these Englishmen faced the full fury of the Nazis, snatching the remnants of the Allied forces back from the brink of annihilation. In so doing, these brave men, often wielding weapons built a generation before, literally saved the world.
Many’s the doctor, farmer, or policeman who knew what they aspired to be even at a tender age. For me, I felt I was destined to be a military pilot. I saw my true calling as flying P38 Lightnings over Europe in 1944.
Alas, I was born four decades too late to be screaming over occupied France in a forked-tail devil. That’s just as well. Some Focke Wulf jock would likely have cut me to pieces before my 21st birthday. However, for a guy born in my era Army helicopters seemed the next best thing.
Modern fighter pilots seem like they have an awful lot of technology to manage. I just wanted to wiggle the sticks and feel the aircraft move around me. In modern Army helicopters, I got to scratch that itch.
Training folks to fly helicopters is expensive, so the Army typically slots you into a single aircraft and leaves you there. I actually got to fly four. The most nostalgic of the lot was the UH-1 Huey.
With a max gross weight of 9,500 pounds, the Huey is indeed a fairly big old bird. However, deftly handled that rascal will do some of the most amazing things. On January 12, 1968, a UH-1D Huey piloted by an Air America pilot with the 20th Special Operations Squadron named CPT Ted Moore actually shot down a North Vietnamese AN-2 Colt biplane in air-to-air combat.
The Setting
Lima Site 85 was a TACAN facility located near Phou Pha Thi in the Annamite Mountains in northeastern Laos. I actually have a friend who did a stint there during the war. Desolate and all but inaccessible, Lima Site 85 was manned by Air Force personnel seconded to Lockheed Martin and the CIA as civilian contractors, a practice known at the time as “sheep dipping.” The bomber jockeys who used it for targeting information called the place Station 97.
Local security was courtesy friendly Hmong guerillas and a smattering of mercenaries under Hmong General Vang Pao. The radar site was used to guide American bomber strikes into targets in North Vietnam independent of weather or visibility. LS85 was a mere 125 miles as the crow flies from Hanoi.
The beating heart of LS85 was an old SAC precision bomb scoring radar. This device could locate an aircraft to within a few meters under any conditions. By flying along a given radial outward from the radar site and releasing their bombs on the command of the radar operator USAF bombers could attack targets in North Vietnam day or night in any weather.
By 1967 LS85 was guiding 55% of the bombing missions directed against North Vietnam. The North Vietnamese soon grew weary of this pummeling.
LS85 sat perched atop a desolate 5,800-foot karst peak. In true US government fashion, the facility was kept habitable via resupply by air. The sheer cliffs surrounding the facility helped discourage a North Vietnamese ground assault. Frustrated by their inability to neutralize the facility, the North Vietnamese Air Force marshaled four of their Soviet-supplied AN-2 Colt biplanes for an ad hoc bombing mission.
The Players
The AN-2 was a lumbering beast of a thing first flown in 1947. With a max gross weight of 11,993 pounds and a cruise speed of 100 knots (115 miles per hour), the AN-2 was originally intended as a crop dusting and military utility aircraft. Around 18,000 copies were built.
For this mission, the North Vietnamese Air Force (VNAF) had outfitted their Colts with two 12-shot underwing pods for 57mm folding fin aerial rockets. They had also arranged twenty 250mm mortar rounds configured with impact fuses along the floor of the cabin. These hefty rounds could be dropped like bombs by the pilot by triggering hinged release doors from the cockpit. Thusly equipped the four Colts approached the CIA radar station perched atop this rugged peak.
The Attack
Two of the aircraft started their attack runs while the other two orbited in wait. The AN-2 is a noisy machine, and the LS85 contingent knew they were there before the mortar rounds began to fall. The facility was well camouflaged, so the planes had to get in close to accurately drop their loads.
Four Hmong natives were killed in this initial attack, two men and two women. A Thai mercenary ran outside with his AK47 and opened fire on the lead plane. The big fat slow VNAF biplane shuddered and then descended to crash into the jungle. This took the spunk out of the other VNAF aircraft, and they broke for home.
An Air America UH-1D was coincidentally enroute on a resupply mission when the AN-2’s started their mischief. Confronted as he was by the swirling biplanes on his approach to the site CPT Moore later remarked, “It looked like something out of World War 1.”
As the remaining AN-2 Colts banked for North Vietnam CPT Ted Moore’s UH-1D gave pursuit. CIA operator Glenn Woods rode in the back of the Huey and readied his personal weapon.
The Fight
In short order, the AN-2’s and pursuing Huey were in North Vietnamese airspace. Visibility out of the AN-2 was pretty wretched on a good day. The plane was designed to dust crops, not mix it up in aerial combat with enemy aircraft. As a result, CPT Moore’s Huey was on top of the AN-2 before the communist pilot knew he was there.
These two dissimilar aircraft were about evenly matched as regards performance. They both had a similar top speed, though the Huey was likely much more maneuverable. As a CIA Air America driver, CPT Moore was undoubtedly the markedly more capable pilot as well. This was about to make a huge difference in the day’s outcome.
This AN-2 was flying low, presuming that it had gotten away free and clear. CPT Moore maneuvered his helicopter above and behind the lumbering biplane, using his prodigious rotor wash to stall the plane’s top wing. This caused the confused communist pilot to further reduce speed in an effort at maintaining control. Now with the AN-2 flying slowly and mere meters from the pursuing Huey, Glen Woods leaned out the door of the helicopter and unlimbered his AK47.
The Weapon
We have covered aircrew weapons in the Vietnam War in this venue before. Here’s the link if you’re interested—
For an Air America flight crew in 1968 those guys would pack whatever weapons they could scrounge. Considering they would be operating over hostile territory, a captured AK47 would be a superb choice. This would give a downed aircrew the capability to use locally available ammunition. It also allowed an evading aviator some degree of anonymity as their weapons would make the same noise as those of the enemy.
Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov was the 17th of 19 children raised by Siberian peasants. He is universally acclaimed as the founder of the ubiquitous communist assault rifle that bears his name. More than 100 million copies make the Kalashnikov the most produced firearm in history.
Vietnam was a proxy war between the two biggest kids on the block. While the United States went all-in with hundreds of thousands of combat troops, the communists responded with untold mountains of military materiel. This meant lots of AK47 rifles.
The Russians and North Koreans did their part, but it was really the communist Chinese who moved the most iron into South Vietnam. Prior to the 1968 Gun Control Act, it was theoretically possible to bring captured automatic weapons back into the country as war trophies. These vet bring-back AKs command astronomical prices on the collector market today.
The Aftermath
At close range, Glen Woods emptied his AK into the cockpit of the big VNAF biplane. The airplane fell into a flat spin and crashed hard into the thick jungle below. While two of the VNAF Colts escaped, CIA ground teams purportedly located both crash sites later and indeed reported copious bullet holes in both aircraft.
Two months later on MAR 10, 1968, communist special forces troops of the Peoples’ Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and Pathet Lao successfully scaled the karst cliffs and infiltrated the LS85 site. A specially selected platoon of 33 PAVN soldiers led by Lieutenant Truong Muc had trained for nine months for the attack. This assault unit carried 23 AK47 rifles, three Chicom Type 54 pistols, four SKS carbines, and three RPG7 rocket launchers along with ample explosives and hand grenades.
They overwhelmed the installation’s meager defenders and slaughtered the poorly armed technicians stationed there. Thirteen American airmen and 42 Thai and Hmong soldiers died, making the battle for LS85 the worst loss of life for USAF ground forces during the Vietnam War. Two sets of remains were not identified until 2013.
Chief Master Sergeant Richard Etchberger earned a posthumous Air Force Cross in 1968 for helping evacuate his troops during the frenetic defense of LS85. This award was upgraded to the Medal of Honor by President Obama in 2010.
