The Gunner
Despite the overcast skies, the blankets of gray cloud that occasionally closed up and blocked out the sun's rays almost completely, the orders came rolling in, again and again, incessant and impossible to refuse. They all amounted to the same thing, regardless of what exactly they said.
Attack.
German fighting prowess had rolled the British and French back across France. City after city, town after town, mile after mile, the enemy had yielded again and again to the supreme excellence of the German soldier, the German aviator, and the German sailor. German arms had been enough to beat the enemy back to this point. And now, German leadership had devised a plan for how to finish him.
Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring had convinced the Führer himself to halt the tanks. Rather than risk wasting such precious vehicles at the end of a campaign, the Reichsmarschall had convinced Hitler to allow the Luftwaffe to secure victory, and destroy the enemy forces from the air. Determined to keep his word, the Reichsmarschall had the Luftwaffe high command pressing its units in France to attack, attack, attack. It was an exciting and an exhausting time to be a German aviator.
Hans, sitting in the rear of his brother's Junkers Ju-87B, clutched the pistol grip of the MG-15 he was trained and tasked to defend the aircraft with. The Sturzkampfflugzeug, or "Stuka", was a dive-bomber, the best in the entire world, and his brother, Dieter, was a brilliant pilot. He wasn't scared. But…
He was scared.
The thing was, Dieter said fear was natural. Going to war, getting into an aircraft headed into battle, waiting for the moment when that aircraft would roll over and go into a dive as steep as ninety degrees, plummeting toward the earth from thousands of meters up at nearly six hundred kilometers per hour… all of that, Dieter said, was supposed to produce fear. If none of it did, Dieter had told his younger brother, you were probably crazy.
"Do you ever get afraid?" Hans had asked. "When you go on a mission, do you ever get afraid?"
"Yes," Dieter had answered. "Every time."
But Hans didn't see how that was possible. His brother, a hauptmann in the Luftwaffe- a "captain," the English would have said- was in command of four of the twelve machines operated by III Squadron of Sturzkampfgeschwader 77. He was already being considered for promotion to major, and held the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross for gallantry.
In Spain, during the civil war there, Dieter had flown a Stuka with the famed "Condor Legion," helping Franco's forces secure victory. From there Poland, Norway, the Low Countries, France. Dieter had flown dozens upon dozens of missions, and was an expert on the inside and outside of the Junkers 87 dive-bomber. There was nothing Hans had been able to come up with, or seen anyone else come up with, that Dieter did not know about the aircraft or how to make it do what he wanted in combat.
Reading his brother's letters, hearing his stories, and now, riding with him into battle and blasting away with a machine gun at those few fighters who were daring and foolish enough to attack, Hans was convinced: his brother knew no fear. He handled anything that came up with supreme coolness and courage, even when the Stuka took damage from enemy fire, as had happened a few times. Taking off, landing, diving, climbing, going on strafing runs and improvising as he went after targets of opportunity… there was simply no other way to put it. Dieter was a genius in the field.
How? How could someone like that- so utterly defiant, even contemptuous , of anything that dared stand in his and the mighty Stuka's way- ever be afraid?
It was modesty. It had to be. The better Dieter got at something, the more he seemed to downplay it. The more he was decorated for supreme skill, daring and bravery in battle, for merit and for loyal service, the more he insisted it wasn't him that deserved the praise, but others. His gunner, his fellow pilots, his ground crew. Anyone but him. Given such behavior, Hans was certain Dieter had vanquished his own fear long ago, and was simply determined to not make any big fuss about it. That was his way.
XX
"Hans!"
The voice of his elder brother made the seventeen-year-old jump in his seat.
"Yes?" Hans asked in reply, hoping his voice sounded level.
"We're just a few minutes out from Dunkirk. The English and French will be spread out over the beaches. Was there something you wanted me to hit just for you, or shall I pick?"
Hans couldn't help but grin. As the boss of this flight of four Stukas and one of the most respected men in the squadron, Dieter had no reason to pay any attention to his kid brother. Not at any time, and especially not now. Dieter had his orders, but Hans felt amused and honored that Dieter was letting him feel like he had a say in the process.
"A ship would be nice."
Up front, Dieter laughed. "Funny. You and the big-shots all want the same thing. Every English ship out there, straight to the bottom."
"If even one gets away, I'll write to Reichsmarschall Göring."
"And tell him what, dearest brother?"
"That you are incompetent and obviously want to fly for the French, of course."
"I think I would rather become a communist."
Dieter gave his sharp, barking laugh again, and then shifted in the pilot's seat. "You're funny, Hansi. When we land-"
BOOM!
BOOM!
Twin puffs of black smoke exploded into life off to the side, close- too close- to the starboard wing, cutting Dieter off. He promptly settled in on the controls, and said tersely over the radio to the other three planes, "Get ready. This is it. Spread out and pick the best targets of opportunity. Ships get first priority, second is men on the beach."
The plane shook again as flak burst near them, and Hans fought back a word his mother had never taught him. Dieter just flew the plane. The big V12 engine kept on going, strong and steady.
As they flew out over the battlefield, Hans dared to crane his neck and take a look. There were men down there- hundreds, no, thousands! How could the Luftwaffe have enough bombs and bullets to handle them all?
"Ship," one of the other pilots, Gunther, said over the radio. "By the mole. Looks like it's loading on troops."
"I see it," Dieter said, banking the Stuka and altering course. "It's mine."
Only the occasional flak shell was coming up to meet them now. Whoever was down there firing at them probably didn't have a whole lot of ammunition.
Nonetheless, Hans was afraid. His heart was racing, going faster than he would have thought possible. He could see the white ship by the mole, the long, pier-like structure going out toward the water from the beach. The dive was coming. It wasn't going to be long now.
The ship… it had red crosses on it. Red crosses, yet the thing was being used to load troops. All the reconnaissance flights said so. The English were bringing in hospital ships and using them to evacuate able-bodied men.
The damned nerve of those people! Hans could not believe it. Germans did not engage in such treachery. They played fair, but the English and the French did not want to. So StG-77 was given orders to play some tricks right back.
They were going to hit every single ship within sight of this beach. To hell with what it looked like. If it was involved in this evacuation, it was moving enemy troops- men who would only come back to kill more good Germans later if they were allowed to get away now. If the German fighting man hesitated, if he let his desire to be compassionate get the better of him, the enemy would get away.
Dieter was not about to fall into that kind of trap. Hans knew his brother was as hard as Krupp steel, inside and out. He didn't enjoy bombing or killing, but when something tough needed doing, Dieter did it and never looked back.
"Targeting troops on the beach," Lukas, another pilot in the flight, said.
"Hitting the ship at the mole. After you, Hauptmann," Gunther called out.
"Troops on the beach," Martin indicated.
"Understood, all," Dieter replied. "As soon as the target's beneath your feet, dive."
For the lead Stuka in this flight, for the one that Hans was riding in, that was no longer minutes away. It was down to seconds. The fact that Hans could no longer catch even a glimpse of their target meant they had to be right over it.
Sure enough, Dieter called out, "Diving," and in moments Gunther, Lukas and Martin all echoed him. Hans felt his stomach lurch, and clutched onto the MG-15 with both hands as the Ju-87 rolled completely over. Oh, shit… it was happening again. Terrifying and exhilarating in equal extremes, the Stuka was going into a dive.
Briefly, the world turned upside down, and Hans wondered how anything in the world could even compare to this. He had volunteered for this job, and a lucky thing, too- had Mother and Father let him go any later, he would surely have still been in training when the Battle of France ended and the war was over. Instead, here he was, able to watch first-hand as his brother destroyed what was left of the enemy army.
When the world righted itself again, the Junkers was diving, nose pointed nearly straight down at the land and sea below. After just a second or two, over the rushing wind and the roar of the engine, Hans could hear it. "Jericho's Trumpets," they called it, the high-pitched, screaming sirens that were the Stuka's signature. Activated when the bomber reached a certain speed in a dive, they announced its presence to everyone unfortunate enough to be on the ground, signaling to them what should have been obvious: that they had crossed a dangerous enemy, and in so doing made a very serious and very fatal mistake.
Fixed to the Stuka's non-retractable landing gear, the sirens were shrill and terrifying. Even for Hans, safely inside the Stuka's cockpit and insulated from the full volume of the sirens' sound, it was enough to make all the hair on his neck stand on end. And until the Stuka broke out of its dive and released the bombs, the sirens would never stop screaming. Death rushed down on the British ship, the ship being criminally used to move troops, and Hans held on for dear life. In just a few seconds, they would drop from around 4,600 meters to just 450. Every time it happened, Hans came out of it drenched in sweat, and this time looked to be no different.
Ten seconds.
Nine.
Eight.
Seven.
Six.
Five.
Hans thought of the cross around his neck, and wondered if he should've perhaps clutched at that instead. No matter. God was still with him, still with Dieter. Still with Germany. And if He wasn't with this particular Stuka today, well- nothing Hans could do really mattered.
Four.
A quick, tense look to left and right showed that earth and ocean were indeed rushing up to meet them. This all took careful timing, and if you hesitated even a bit at the wrong second, the entire plane would hit the target instead of just the bombs. Hans knew that wouldn't happen. But he knew it could.
Three…
"Bombs away!" Dieter shouted, and Hans knew that a light on the contact altimeter had come on, indicating that the Stuka was reaching the ideal bomb-release point. While the deployed dive-brakes held the aircraft steady, the bombs would be detached from beneath the outer edges of the wings and the underbelly, the speed of the dive serving to literally throw them down on the target.
Bombs released, the Stuka immediately began to pull out of the dive, subjecting itself and its crew to 6 g's. Hans tightened his grip on the machine gun further still as powerful gravitational forces began to force his head down, making him appear as if he was bowing in his gunner's seat, lowering his head in apparent homage to the MG-15.
Steadily, second by second, Hans' vision began to "gray out". Called "seeing stars" by the pilots, it was what happened to you when more than 5 g forces were imposed while you were in a seated position. You steadily lost vision while remaining conscious, but you'd black out after five seconds.
Please let the automatic pull-out work. Please let Dieter stay in control and pull the nose up himself. Please don't let us smash into that damned mole and die on one of the last days of the damned war. Don't let me be killed right as we're about to win the final victory…
Struggling to even stay conscious, Hans felt his head hit against the base of the stockless machine gun. Everything went black.
When Hans opened his eyes again, he was looking down at the ground. Climbing at the steepest angle the engine could handle, the Stuka was ascending again. In this period following the dive, it was both slow-moving and low to the ground, making the Junkers an easy target… if you could get past the 109s and the even deadlier 110s, the "Destroyers".
Or, if you even had planes or antiaircraft guns at all. Neither seemed to be present- apart from the brief welcome the Stukas had gotten coming in- and neither was firing at the Junkers.
Behind them, Gunther was coming out of his dive, angling his nose to follow Dieter and Hans' plane. And behind them, steam and smoke billowed from the hospital ship. It was just seconds after the bombs had impacted, but Hans could see her listing heavily. He thought about taking aim and putting some shots on the open decks of the ship, where he could see brown and green forms jumping over the side.
No. No. Conserve ammunition. Conserve it. Just because there's been no fighters so far doesn't mean there aren't any.
The ship was going under, and going quickly. Something that the bombs had hit was letting quite a lot of water in; the two Stukas had achieved no less than a mortal blow.
"She's hit!" Hans exclaimed. "We've got her! She's going down!"
"Looks like it," Dieter said approvingly. "Good."
Hans looked out as the Stuka climbed away, watching as the white ship with the red crosses began drifting away from the mole. Apparently, some of the men rushing about on the mole had cut her lines, because she wasn't tied up anymore. Instead, after drifting up and hitting against the mole, the white ship moved to starboard, sinking steadily.
There was death down there. A lot of it, probably. And if there was anyone really wounded aboard, they had to have no way out. There'd be no time. Sitting there, helpless, unable to get away as the water rushed in to find you… it wasn't an end Hans envied. Not at all.
But this was war. Hans knew it was a dirty business, and it involved doing things that one didn't enjoy. They were here to kill these people before they could get away and come back to kill them. The squadron leader, Major Günter Schwartzkopff, had made it clear this morning when the day's operations began: "This is it, gentlemen. The British and French hold the beach at Dunkirk and not much else. We are going to finish this war right here."
Hans prayed for the souls of everyone the Stukas would kill here today, knowing there would be many. He prayed for more to be killed, as many as possible, and for one reason: this battle was about breaking the English. The French were done. They might not have realized it yet, but their role in this war was finished. Their air force obliterated, their navy docked and useless and their army shattered and broken in the field, the French had nothing left.
But the English- if enough of them got away here, they might carry on with this futile resistance for a while yet. And that would mean more fighting, yes, more exciting and daring missions… but it would also mean that more good German fighting men would be lost. Hans did not value his own chances for glory so much that he wanted that.
XX
After the other two Stukas joined them, Dieter circled around, and the four dive-bombers, taking advantage of the apparent total lack of fighter or significant flak opposition, went on a strafing run on the beach. Each Junkers 87 had two MG-17s mounted, one in each wing. Hans could feel the Stuka shake as the 17s thundered, could picture the British Tommies and their French comrades diving for cover, helpless and overcome with fear.
PING!
BANG!
Shit! Not quite overcome. Hans got the shock of his life as he realized no less than two .303 rounds, the standard for British rifles and machine guns, had come through the floor of the Stuka, just off to his right. Damn. They were not supposed to get that close.
Youthful exuberance and teenage daring- as well as an ever-present desire to impress his fearless brother- saw to it that Hans quickly got over the surprise. At first frightened by how close the rounds had come, Hans laughed, even if it was a little shaky and nervous. He bent down to the floor, locating one of the bullets, and picked it up.
"All right, Hans?" Dieter called back.
"Yes," Hans said. "I'm fine. Some Tommy needs better aim."
Setting the Stuka to climb again, Dieter replied, "Better give them a farewell as we head back."
So I should spend ammunition on this? Well, it makes sense. It isn't like the enemy has any planes left. We can spare a drum or two.
"Right." Hans stuck the .303 bullet in one of his flight suit's pockets, closed it back up, and quickly concentrated on aiming the MG-15 at the men behind them on the beach. Careful not to accidentally fire on any of the Stukas forming up behind the one he was in, Hans sighted on a group that looked within range and fired. The machine gun spat flame, blazing away at 1,000 rounds per minute. Down on the sand, Hans could see men in khaki and brown diving for what little cover there was as not only Hans but the other Stuka gunners opened up.
It was a heady feeling, sitting in this plane, fast and invulnerable, spitting death in the form of 7.92x57mm Mauser bullets. Hans did not waste a single round, but fired in steady bursts, each aimed at a particular handful of men. So many were down there! How could he possibly miss entirely? Hans kept at it as long as the 150-round double drum attached to the gun lasted, but with its rate of fire, that was just short of ten seconds.
As Hans stopped to change drums, he felt a certain amount of disappointment. The terrific fear that came with making a dive was already fading, and on its heels came the desire to come right back and do it again. "Adrenaline" did not even begin to describe it. Hans had his own theory that Stuka crews experienced something else entirely. Something much more intense.
BOOM!
"Shit!" Dieter barked up front, hunching his shoulders down as that damned gun fired at them again. He put the nose down, and called out, "Enemy flak cannon down there in the town. I'm starting a strafing run."
Hans held on as the Stuka's nose lowered again. Not into a dive, but they were speeding toward the ground all the same. And the crew of that gun was going to try and take a shot at them, realizing that time was running out…
BOOM!
Off to port, farther away, a shell exploded. The crew had probably fired the second they saw the Stukas coming for them, not thinking to change the fuses and set them for the much shorter range.
BOOM!
The plane really shook with that one, and Hans felt his teeth clack together. Damn, that was too close! That one felt like it had gone off up front!
"All right, Dieter?" Hans shouted, feeling worried.
"I'm fine," Dieter growled. "Come on. Let's see how they like this!"
The MG-17s opened up again, making the whole plane vibrate. Moments later, the other three Stukas' wing guns blazed to life, and after a few moments Dieter shouted as someone scored a hit. He raised the nose of the Junkers again, and the other three bombers followed his lead.
"Target destroyed, Herr Hauptmann," Martin reported over the radio.
"I have eyes in my head, Leutnant," Dieter replied.
"Is that right?"
"Yes," Dieter said, chuckling briefly. "Everyone, climb to 2,500 meters and watch your gauges. Enemy fire may have caused damage."
"Thunder Leader," Gunther said after a few moments, "I see traces of black fluid coming from your engine. You may be leaking oil."
"Noted," Dieter responded. "I'll watch that gauge."
Hans looked outside, and indeed, a thin trail of black droplets was streaming past the plane. "I can see it too," Hans said.
"We'll be fine."
After a few minutes of watching the skies and seeing no threats at all, Hans turned his back to the machine gun and focused on his other job- radio operator. He listened for traffic directed at the flight, and took over radioing between the planes as necessary.
"Thunder Leader," Lukas said, "I have two contacts closing with us from port. They look like fighters."
"Probably 109s going out to the Channel."
Hans lifted his head and looked in that direction, peering out and trying to get a better look at the incoming planes. He'd seen his share of Messerschmitts, riding with Dieter across France. The fighters got closer and closer every second, and Hans was about to say something when either Gunther or Martin, Hans wasn't sure which, said it for him.
"Those aren't 109s!"
Just then, the two fighters roared through the Stuka formation, machine guns blazing. Gunther's machine appeared to hesitate, pause in place, then nosed down toward the earth, black smoke pouring from its motor.
"Gunther- I think Gunther's hit," Hans said, fighting to keep his voice steady.
"Any parachutes?" Dieter asked.
Come on. Come on. Gunther had flown with Dieter since Spain. He wasn't about to get killed now…
"One," Hans called out. "I see one."
"Mark his position, everyone, and close up! Gunners, watch our tails!"
Hans, his radio equipment long forgotten, was already holding onto his MG-15 for dear life. Behind his oxygen mask, a pair of crisp blue eyes stared out, searching the sky, waiting for a chance to take revenge for the unit's loss.
"Here they come!" Hans shouted, and he started blasting away as the two fighters came at the Stukas again, this time diving down on their rear. Sighting in on one plane, Hans let him have it, feeling his whole body tremble as the MG roared and spat fire. It was shaking so damn much it felt like it was trying to jump right out of his hands.
Helmut, Martin's gunner, and Marko, Lukas' gunner, opened up at almost the same instant. Dieter began throwing the Junkers to port, and then to starboard, trying to throw off the enemy pilots' aim. Unfortunately, it made aiming hell for Hans too. He snarled in anger, trying to make the enemy plane stay in his sights despite everything. Come on! Come on!
"He's on me!" Dieter called out, and Hans felt a tremor of fear as one of the enemy fighters closed range and began to settle in on them.
"I'm on him," Martin answered.
Behind them, a strange drama unfolded as a fighter closed on a bomber, and one of the bomber's comrades changed course and closed in on him.
The Stuka jerked violently to the left, just as the enemy plane fired. Hans was thrown against the canopy glass, and for a moment he saw stars. Focus, focus! Wake up! He forced himself back to his gun, and fired away. Either he was missing, or the shots were not doing enough damage! Hans hunched lower towards his gun, grimly set to kill this man or be killed trying. He was not going to screw this up. He was not going to let Dieter down on one of the last days of the damn war!
Just as the enemy fighter's guns began to spit flames, Martin opened fire, and the enemy pilot's shots went high. The enemy fighter broke away and headed off from the Stukas, trailing smoke.
Hans' gun was empty. He reached for a new 'saddle drum', dropped it, swore, and made the change. The MG-15 stayed in an open bolt position once the last round was fired, so he didn't have to charge it again now that it was reloaded. Heart pounding, body coated in sweat, Hans searched the sky. No way were they giving up this easy.
"I don't see Lukas," Martin called out on the radio. "Thunder Leader, do you see him?"
"I do," Dieter answered grimly, and at that moment, Hans saw the black smoke rising from the forest beneath them. No one said anything else. Martin must have seen it, too, and realized what it meant. No one was getting out of that one.
"Your engine looks like it's having trouble, Thunder Leader," Martin said.
"What do you see?"
"Gray smoke."
"We'll just have to hope it holds," Dieter answered.
"Up high! Up high, here they come again!" Hans yelled, and he aimed the MG as high up as it would go. The two fighters plummeted down on the two remaining Stukas, determined to take the rest of their number. It was a fight to the death as the fighters dove and the bombers' gunners blazed away, with no quarter asked and none given.
Machine gun fire slammed into the back of Dieter's Stuka, and Hans screamed as the force of one or more shots roughly shoved him back in his seat. He shouted, swearing heatedly, as Dieter threw the Stuka around some more, and struggled to change another double drum. That was three, out of six the plane carried. He was going to have to be careful.
"Hans? Are you all right back there?" Dieter called.
"Yes," Hans lied immediately, looking down. He saw blood. And- for some reason- he couldn't seem to move or feel his legs. "I'm okay. I'm all right."
"Were you hit?"
"Yes," Hans admitted. "It's nothing serious. I'm okay."
"The bastards are French!" Dieter shouted suddenly, as the two fighters once again roared past. He threw the Stuka into another evasive maneuver, handling it as roughly as Hans had ever seen him do. Sure enough, as the two brown-and-green fighters flashed by, Hans caught sight of the roundels of the French Air Force, and the French tricolor flag on the rear-most part of the tail.
Hans didn't speak, but simply fired, suppressing the pain beginning to eat away at his strength and turning it into anger. One of the fighters, the one already damaged, began to spew black smoke from its engine, and a few moments later the cockpit flew open and a man jumped out, opening a parachute.
That's still left the other fighter, though, and it went into a wide arc to the rear of the Stukas. Hans figured out what was happening after only a few moments.
"He's coming back around. He's coming back around!"
Martin's Stuka put its nose down as her pilot desperately tried to gain some speed, and Dieter did the same. They were trading altitude for speed and time now, trying to do the impossible- outrun a fighter in a plane that could not outrun more than a biplane.
God, this hurt. There was something wrong down there. At his waist, near his waist, something. Coursing adrenaline was helping to keep the worst of it away, but Hans was afraid. He did not want to know how badly those guns had hit him. No! No! None of that. He was fine. Perfectly fine. Just a few scratches, enough to get a Wound Badge. Nothing more.
"Come closer, you," Hans whispered, sighting in on the enemy fighter. He knew that plane. It was a Dewoitine D. 520, best in the French arsenal. Precious few of them had been available to deploy in the defense of France, and by now there were supposed to be none at all.
The machine guns on the wings of the fighter came alive again, and gunfire punched holes in the port wing of the Stuka. Hans prayed the fuel tank there hadn't been breached, and fired a series of bursts as the fighter closed in. It cut speed and settled in behind Martin's Stuka, and Hans knew what was going to happen before it did. Safely beneath the slow-moving bomber, the French pilot poured gunfire into its engine. The Stuka's motor exploded into flame and it began to dive toward the earth.
The glass opened. Front, rear.
One man emerged, then another.
A pair of parachutes blossomed into life, descending toward the farmer's field below. After a few moments, the empty Stuka hit the earth and exploded, landing just at the edge of the field.
"Martin's down," Hans said. "Two chutes."
"I'll mark their position," Dieter said tersely. "It's just us and him, now."
Hans hunched over his machine gun, determined that it would be "him" that would have to bail out next.
The enemy fighter, however, had disappeared. Or it seemed to have disappeared. Hans searched the sky, wondering what the enemy was up to. The clouds hung low, largely obscuring the sun. The bastard could be anywhere up there, taking his time. He knew full well that a Junkers 87 was not going anywhere fast.
The engine was running rough now; something had happened to it amidst the repeat attack runs by the fighters, or the gunfire from the ground. Hans gasped as a sharp wave of pain hit him.
"I'm fine," Hans said, just as Dieter started to speak.
"We're closing in on Caen," Dieter said by way of reply. He sounded tense, extremely tense. Worried. The fact that his brother sounded at all frightened… Hans did not like that at all.
Just then, the Dewoitine dove out of the clouds, machine guns blazing. Bullets slammed into the plane, and explosive cannon rounds blew holes in the starboard wing. Hans fired away, holding the trigger down, and smoke began to trail from the enemy fighter's motor. But still, he would not break away, but simply closed the distance and kept firing. The sound of gunfire tearing into the plane made Hans experience a kind of fear he'd never imagined existed. That was death coming for the Stuka, and its crew. Hans emptied the double drum, dropped it, grabbed for another with leather-gloved fingers.
The French fighter took half of another drum before it stopped its attack, either too damaged or out of ammunition. It peeled off, heading east. Eventually, Hans saw the cockpit open, followed by a parachute.
There. He'd done it. He'd done it. The fighters were gone.
"Thank God," Hans said, sighing. He spent the next… while… watching for threats. Hans didn't have much sense of time right now. Unwilling to trust the skies to be safe anymore, he kept an unceasing vigil for however long it was until the struggling Junkers finally neared the airfield, and Dieter announced he was bringing them in to land.
XX
As the Stuka flew in, steadily losing altitude, the engine grumbled and coughed. As the fixed undercarriage touched the ground and the tail dropped, it died. Hans let go of the machine gun, and finally let himself acknowledge his pain. He felt weak, terribly weak. Clutching both hands to his stomach, Hans felt something warm and wet. God, this hurt.
"Hans?" Dieter said, sliding his end of the canopy open. Hans just groaned. "Hans!" Dieter said again. It was no longer a question, but a sound of fear and alarm. Dieter was out of the pilot's seat in an instant, and not even five seconds later, Hans heard the rear canopy glass being slid open.
The gunner wanted to be brave. He wanted to be strong and tough, just like his brother. Instead, he started to cry, holding on where he'd been hit, in agony and unable to hide it.
"God in heaven," Dieter whispered, and suddenly he was shouting, hollering for the medics. "Hans, come on! Let's get you out of there, we'll get you help!"
"I can't, Dieter," Hans moaned.
"What? What's wrong?" Dieter asked.
"I can't feel my legs," Hans blurted. He felt so weak, like some little baby. He was ashamed, embarrassed of his own weakness. "I can't stand up, Dieter."
Dieter turned his head and bellowed for the medics, using a fierceness Hans had never heard from him before. His older brother reached down and took one of Hans' bloody hands. "Listen to me, Hansi. You'll be fine! You'll be fine!"
As the runners arrived from the medical tent, Dieter immediately set to helping them lift Hans up and out of the gunner's seat, and place him on a stretcher.
"We need to hurry, Herr Hauptmann," one of the orderlies said.
"I'm sorry, Dieter," Hans cried, overcome with remorse, with guilt. "I'm so sorry. I messed up."
Taking his brother's hand again, Dieter looked down at him. "You did nothing wrong. You're a hero. You saved my life."
Hans smiled, thrilled in spite of the pain. "Thank you."
He wanted to say his brother was wrong, that he was no hero, that a real hero would have saved the other bombers in the flight from going down. A real hero wouldn't have been shot and be lying helpless on a stretcher.
But Hans couldn't find the words. The praise from Dieter warmed and cheered him, but pain was washing through his body as the orderlies hurried him to the surgical tent. He tried to apologize for botching the whole thing, but couldn't seem to speak. It hurt too much. Smiling weakly, Hans managed to raise a hand and wave at his older brother, trying to tell him that he'd be fine, that he was so happy to have fought with his brother, the hero, in the skies over France at the end of the war. Hans tried to convey some of that, but wasn't sure if he managed. He smiled and waved again, still trying to say what he couldn't in words, until they took him into the tent and he couldn't see Dieter anymore.
The doctor told him he was going to be okay, but they would have to operate. Hans nodded. He still couldn't move below his waist. He couldn't stand up. He'd been shot. Why did he get shot? Right here, with the war almost over? Hans didn't know. The doctor put something in his arm, said he'd numb the pain. As the cool, delicious fluid began to flow through him, Hans not only forgot about the pain, but he forgot about everything troubling him. He smiled, remembering his brother's care, his concern, his love. He remembered what a wonderful day it had been when he reported in for duty at StG-77, to become his brother's new gunner.
What a wonderful day that had been. What a day. Hans could remember it perfectly, like it had happened this very day, instead of many weeks and weeks ago.
I did my job. I did it and more, Hans thought, and he cried tears of joy. Dieter said I'm a hero. He said he's proud of me. Nothing had ever made Hans feel so good. Nothing had ever meant so much.
As he passed out, Hans' last thoughts turned to the long, gliding descent to land at the airfield, the Stuka trailing smoke, its engine dying. Dieter had done it like it was nothing. Like it was something he did every day. Then Hans thought of the white ship they had sunk by the mole- and how it was for the best. The war would be over soon, and in the end, the men of the Luftwaffe would have saved more lives than they had taken. Hans was proud he had helped play a part in it. That he'd done his job. That he hadn't missed the last battle of the war, after all. That he'd been a good gunner and defended his brother.
He was so damn proud.
A/N: 8-27-2017. This is my second story for "Dunkirk," that magnificent movie, and the sixth for the fandom.
I got the idea of writing a story depicting the perspective of the pilot and gunner of a Junkers Ju-87 "Stuka" about the same day as I saw the movie in theaters the first time, on July 21, 2017. It took just over a month to actually get around to doing it. The Germans are completely hidden from the audience throughout the movie; Nolan gives us no indication of who they are or why they are doing this.
The audience, then, can draw their own conclusions if they care to. Some of the German fighting men attacking the British and French forces besieged at Dunkirk were surely Nazis. Some were the opposite, and despised the NSDAP and Hitler. Others were probably varying degrees of indifferent. Most of all, during the course of the fighting at Dunkirk, I would say the Germans as a whole were just men doing a job, and their personal politics were irrelevant. They wanted to stay alive just as much as the men on the beaches and the ships did. And given how well the war was going for Germany in May-June 1940, morale was probably high and the Germans may have thought they were close to winning the war.
I avoided detailing much of Hans or Dieter's personal history, or even giving them last names, in keeping with what Christopher Nolan did. Whether Dieter, a veteran of the Condor Legion who has been enthusiastically and skillfully flying the Junkers Ju-87 since the first day of World War II, is a Nazi or not, I do not say and personally do not know. Is Hans a Nazi? I don't know. Are they rich or poor, are they in this for Hitler and his cause or in spite of it? That is for the reader to decide.
I am unaware of any fighters of the French Air Force- of any type- participating in the battle at Dunkirk. But given the chaos of the retreat and the collapse of the French military forces, it is possible that two determined aviators with two working fighters and some fuel and ammunition could have taken their planes up from some hidden airfield. It is possible that they could have attacked some Stukas on their way back from Dunkirk and tried to make some difference, even when all seemed lost. Since Spitfires would not have gone that far inland or chased the Stukas so aggressively back towards their base, I chose to present fighters being flown from within France somewhere. I also wanted to show bravery and determination and skill being demonstrated by French pilots. The French Air Force as a whole was catastrophically unprepared, but that doesn't mean individual men within it didn't do what they could.
There really was a hospital ship sunk at Dunkirk- the HMHS Paris, sunk on June 2, 1940. But she was reportedly sunk off the coast, not tied up at a mole. She was sunk by German aircraft, reportedly Junkers Ju-87s. I have been unable to find exactly why a clearly-marked hospital ship was sunk by German bombers, but this was not the only time such a ship was sunk by one side or the other during World War II. I don't know if this holds up in the laws of war of the time, but strictly speaking, a ship, even a hospital ship, being used as part of a military evacuation is being used for military purposes. Therefore, the other side can go right ahead and sink it. The ship we see is loaded heavily with wounded men, but the Germans probably didn't know that. They may have been told, or had reason to believe, that the British and French were using those ships to move able-bodied men. At any rate, German bombers were almost certainly told to sink any ships conducting troop evacuations, and in the military of 1940s Germany you did what you were told.
The fact that Dieter and Hans both appear to misunderstand the truth of why that hospital ship was there and who was aboard it- and how reconnaissance flights helped add to the idea that even a hospital ship should be seen as a military target- is all an effort by me to help suggest the less-than-clear picture German forces probably had of what was actually happening on the beaches.
The Junkers Ju-87 is portrayed as accurately as I could write it. It was tough, but it was also slow-moving and had only one machine gun for defense. Its sirens, fixed to the non-retractable landing gear, emitted a high-pitched wail that terrified men on the ground, as was intended. Despite its fearsome reputation, it was easily destroyed by modern fighters of the time and required a constant and strong fighter escort. Stuka crews were subject to severe physical stress by the steep dive the plane went into, and it was common to experience a "gray-out" of vision, if not black out completely, as the bomber pulled out of its dive. The Stuka was the only dive-bomber of World War II that was capable of diving at a 90-degree angle, rather than the more typical 60-degrees. It was, as described by Eric "Winkle" Brown, famed British test pilot, as being "in a class of its own." It might be fair to say that, especially in May-June 1940, there was no better or more feared dive-bomber in all the world.