Blog
The Second World War resulted in the deaths of around 85 million people. Additionally, tens of millions more people were displaced. However, amid all the carnage, people demonstrated remarkable courage, fortitude, compassion, mercy and sacrifice. We want to honour and celebrate all of those people. In the War Years Blog, we examine the extraordinary experiences of individual service personnel. We also review military history books, events, and museums. We also look at the history of unique World War II artefacts, medals, and anything else of interest.
The Miracle of Dunkirk Retold
In this blog post, we take a look at Christopher Nolan’s new war movie, Dunkirk.
The historical, technical and military inaccuracies aside, Christopher Nolan’s new war movie Dunkirk is worth the price of the ticket. It’s a big movie, beautifully shot on location, that tells the story of the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) from three different perspectives: land, sea and air. However, the epic scale of the film, and Chris Nolan’s preference to use real men, ships and planes over CGI wherever possible, often left the screen strangely underpopulated. Operation Dynamo might have been something of a military and logistical miracle, having rescued around 340,000 men between May 26th and June 4th, 1940, instead of the original estimate of just 35,000. Nevertheless, Dunkirk was a major defeat, and no amount of propaganda about the armada of little ships could hide the fact.
Spitfires
Dunkirk features a great cast including Harry Styles, Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy, Mark Rylance, Fionn Whitehead and Kenneth Branagh. I think Nolan has to be applauded for his all-Brit and Irish cast. I’m sure the studio’s money, marketing and PR people would have been screaming for a Hollywood A-lister to give the film more box-office appeal across the Atlantic. I think Fionn Whitehead did a very credible job as the central character, and possibly the unluckiest Tommy to put on a uniform. Of course, the real stars of the movie were the three Supermarine Spitfires (two Mk.Ia’s and an Mk.Vb according to Warbird News) and the Hispano Buchon doing a credible job of playing a Messerschmitt Bf 109E. I think I’ve seen all of these planes at shows like Flying Legends in recent years. Duxford’s Bristol Blenheim (the only one still flying) also put in a brief appearance. The movie’s Heinkel He 111 is a large, radio-controlled model.
CGI
To my mind, Chris Nolan missed a trick, not embracing and integrating CGI with live-action and genuine kit for Dunkirk. I think Director Joe Wright did a much better, in fact, an extraordinary job with his continuous, five-minute tracking shot of the Dunkirk beach in Atonement (2007). In this one scene, Wright successfully conveys a much more believable account of the chaos, absurdity and tragedy of the retreat and evacuation. We see masses of dishevelled men, wrecked and burning vehicles, a French officer shooting horses, soldiers singing and playing football while others drink, and above it all, the sky is black with thick, oily smoke. Of course, all the CGI in the world won’t save a badly written, acted and directed piece of nonsense such as Mel Gibson’s Hacksaw Ridge (2016). Like just about everything else in the film, the CGI is used with no skill or finesse, so looks fake and totally unbelievable.
Miracle of Dunkirk
Films like Hacksaw Ridge take amazing true stories of courage and sacrifice and turn them into shameful pantomimes. In contrast, Christopher Nolan uses the historical events of May/June 1940 as the stage for a story of courage, hope and redemption. Dunkirk might not be technically or historically quite on the money, and I’m sure Tom Hardy knows you’d be lucky to walk away alive if you really tried to land a Spitfire like that, but then it isn’t a documentary. To me, Chris Nolan’s film is both a question and a reminder. What would we do with our backs against the wall and defeat starring us in the face? Once upon a time, our parents and grandparents faced an implacable enemy, refused to surrender, and turned defeat into victory – maybe then and now that is the miracle of Dunkirk.
The Abbeville Boys, Focke Wulf Fw-190A1
In this blog, we take a look at the unique history of a piece of the engine cowling from Fw-190A-1 Wn.10036. The Fw-190 was part of Jagdgeschwader (JG) 26 "Schlageter" known to the Allies as "The Abbeville Boys". Piloted by Oberfeldwebel Helmut Ufer, the Fw-190 was shot down by an RAF Spitfire in July 1942.
Visiting Flying Legends 2017 WW2 warbirds airshow at IWM Duxford, I happened upon a piece of Focke-Wulf Fw-190 engine cowling. Designed by Kurt Tank in the late 1930s and widely used by the German Luftwaffe during World War II, the Fw-190 Würger (Shrike in English) quickly established itself as a fearsome multi-role aircraft. Until the introduction of the improved Spitfire Mk. IX towards the end of 1942, the RAF didn’t have a comparable interceptor at low and medium altitudes. Named after the Shrike, a small carnivorous bird of prey known for impaling its prey on spikes, the Fw-190 was nicknamed the “butcher bird”.
My particular piece of butcher bird came from Fw-190A-1 Wn.10036. The Fw-190A-1 was in production from June 1941. It was powered by the BMW 801 C-1 engine, rated at 1,560 PS (1,539 hp, 1,147 kW) for take-off. Armament included two fuselage-mounted 7.92 mm (.312 in) MG 17s and two wings root-mounted 7.92 mm (.312 in) MG 17s (in all four MG 17s synchronized to fire through the propeller arc) and two outboard wing-mounted 20 mm cannons.
On the afternoon of Sunday, 13 July 1942 Oberfeldwebel Helmut Ufer was flying at 16,000 feet near the JG26 airfield of Abbeville in France. Ufer, a long-time member of 4/JG26, was flying Fw-190A-1 Wn.10036, designated White 5, only the thirty-sixth production model.
Helmut Ufer had been a tank driver in the Reichwehr. He was released from service in 1935. He volunteered for the Luftwaffe at the start of the war and began his flight training in March 1940. Ufer had won a number of aerial victories. On 13 March 1942, Ufer shot down a Spitfire V over Wirre Effroy northeast of Boulogne. The Spitfire belonged to 124 (Baroda) Squadron, RAF, based at Debden. The pilot was Michael Gordon Meston Reid, 116060, who subsequently died of his wounds at a German Naval Hospital on 7th August 1942. Pilot Officer Reid’s grave is one of four commonwealth war graves and one Polish to be found in Hardinghen cemetery, northeast of where he was originally shot down. On 4 April 1942, Ufer shot down one of 11 Spitfires claimed by JG26 over St. Omer. He downed another Spitfire from 222 Squadron at St. Valery-sur-Somme on 30 April 1942.
Jagdgeschwader (JG) 26 "Schlageter" was known to the Allies as "The Abbeville Boys". The unit crest of a black gothic 'S' on a white shield was created to reflect its involvement in the re-occupation of the Rhineland on March 7, 1936. 4./JG26 belonged to the second Gruppe within the Jagdgeschwader 26 (II./JG26). Karl Ebbighausen then selected a caricature of a tiger's head to represent the unit and it was painted onto each 4.Staffel aeroplane with pride.
On that Sunday afternoon, a group of Spitfires from 616 Squadron led by Australian Flight Lieutenant F.A.O. Tony Gaze were on a 'Circus' to Abbeville. Tony flew with the 616 Squadron until 29 August 1942, by which time he had destroyed 4 enemy planes and one probable.
Tony Gaze finished the war a double-Ace with 11 destroys and 3 shared, including a Me262 and Arado 234, 4 probables and one V1. He was the first Australian to destroy an enemy jet in combat and the first Australian to fly a jet in combat. He has the rare distinction of being awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross three times (DFC with 2 bars) which only 48 people have received in its history. He later went on to have a career in motor racing.
Gaze later reported:
“After a right-hand orbit around Abbeville at 21,000 feet, I saw a single Fw-190 climbing up at about 16,000 feet between us and the coast. I made sure nothing was above us and led Red Section down to attack. I fired a one-second burst from around 300 yards from astern above seeing cannon strikes on the port main plane near the cockpit. As I started to fire again the '190 flicked to the left emitting a puff of black and white smoke and spun down.”
Several other pilots reported seeing the Fw-190 carry on spinning down, apparently out of control, until they lost sight of it. It must be assumed that Oberfeldwebel Helmut Ufer was killed by Gaze's fire after being caught unawares from behind.
On the ground, the villagers of Nibas, to the southwest of Abbeville, were on their way to mass in the village church. Alerted by the howl of an aircraft engine, some caught sight of it diving, almost vertically, towards them. With a huge explosion, the aircraft crashed into a field about 300 yards away from the church. There was little to be found of the aircraft. A smoking crater and a few fragments of metal were all that was left of Ufer's Fw-190.
The Luftwaffe later recovered Ufer’s body and noted the crash site.
Simon Parry of Aviation Archaeology explains, “The owner of the field, grandson of the war-time owner, was kind enough to point out the location of the Fw-190 crash and allowed a team to excavate what was left of the plane. At length, the BMW801 engine, tail wheel, parts of the armament and other items were recovered from a depth of up to 15 feet.”
Sources: Wikipedia on Fw-190, JG26