05/30/2026
From the hull, looking out.
A still from British Pathé ciné footage (Reel 2127.18, still 352), filmed during Operation Pheasant, 22–23 October 1944.
British infantry being carried forward in Ram “Kangaroos” of the 1st Armoured Personnel Carrier Squadron — the Canadian-crewed conversions that ferried assault troops through the fighting around ’s-Hertogenbosch.
Something about this still image drew me in. The Archive tends to focus more on the machines themselves and then the crews, but not often see or discuss much, the infantrymen that rumbled into battle in the hull 'pouch'.
But look inside the pouch. Shoulder to shoulder, pressed together. Focuses forward, elbows pensively hooked over the armour lip. A ride toward contact with the enemy and uncertainty…
But one lad, half-turned toward the camera, gives a small, almost shy smile. Not a broad movie grin. More like recognition. Oh — a camera!? For a split second, he’s not an infantryman in an armoured carrier heading toward battle. He’s just a young man who now exists well beyond this moment. Maybe it’s a simple “hi, Mum.” Or is it, “maybe I'll see you again, maybe I won't.”
Maybe it’s nothing at all?
We’ll never know his name. We don’t know what happened after this Kangaroo stopped and they depouched.
In the Archive, I’ve spent a lot of time looking at faces, many faces.
Sometimes, they look back at you.
(WJM)
