The Sten Submachine Gun
Note: Spoilers in this post for the movies Where Eagles Dare and Anthropoid–and for the book HHhH
Several weeks ago, I received a package from M2; it was a flat, padded envelope. I opened it and found the book, Broadsword Calling Danny Boy (2018) by Geoff Dyer.
The book is Dyer’s extended review of the movie Where Eagles Dare (1968). Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood portray Allied soldiers who attempt to infiltrate a Nazi headquarters high up in the mountains and accessible only by helicopter and cable car.
The book is hilarious; I laughed and laughed. Dyer presents the movie in such humorous terms that I didn’t at first realize that Eagles was a serious World War II action movie.
Coming back to the title of this post, there is a scene in which an antagonist attempts to open file with a Sten submachine gun. Evidently, the Sten has a reputation for poor reliability, and true to this reputation, it fails to fire.
We have not seen a British weapon of World War Two vintage until now, when Wymark pulls a Sten on Burton. And guess what? It doesn’t frigging work. This is perhaps to be expected of a weapon that was, in the opinion of Max Hastings, ‘highly unreliable, prone to jamming, and inaccurate beyond thirty metres’ [1]
This scene from Where Eagles Dare recalls for me a similar incident–that occurred in real life–described in the book HHhH (2010), and depicted in the movie Anthropoid (2016). In World War II, two Czechoslovakian commandos were sent on a mission to Prague to assassinate the truly-terrifying Nazi Reinhard Heydrich. When the moment of truth comes, one of the commandos attempts to shoot Heydrich using (Can you guess?) a Sten submachine gun:
He stops in the middle of the road. Turns to face the car. Looks into your eyes. Pushes aside his raincoat. Uncovers a machine gun. Points the gun at you. Aims. And fires. [2]
But the Sten fails to fire–which leads to complete chaos breaking out.
Are there other examples–in fiction or real life–of the Sten failing to work as expected? Let me know in the comments.
[1] Dyer, Geoff. Broadsword Calling Danny Boy: Watching ‘Where Eagles Dare’ (p. 108). Kindle Edition.
[2] Binet, Laurent. HHhH: A Novel (p. 254). Kindle Edition.
Published: Sat 30 Nov 2024
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