| Kangaroo |
A Priest Kangaroo of 209th Self-Propelled Battery, Royal Artillery, transports infantry of 78th Division near Conselice, Italy, 13 April 1945. |
| Type |
armoured personnel carrier |
| Place of origin |
 Canada |
| Service history |
| In service |
1944 - ? |
| Production history |
| Designer |
Guy Simonds |
| Designed |
1944 |
Infantry of the 53rd (welsh) Division in a Ram Kangaroo on the outskirts of
Ochtrup, Germany,
3 April 1945
A Kangaroo was a World War II British or Commonwealth armoured personnel carrier, created by conversion of a tank chassis.
History
In 1944, Crerar's First Canadian Army was concerned by manpower shortages and Lieutenant-General Guy Simonds, commander of the II Canadian Corps, devised Kangaroos as a way of reducing infantry losses. The first Kangaroos were converted from 102 M7 Priest self-propelled guns of the Artillery regiments of the II Canadian Corps in Normandy in 1944. These were no longer needed, as the Canadian artillery regiments were reequiped with 25 pdr Sexton self propelled guns. At a field workshop (codenamed Kangaroo, hence the name) they were stripped of the artillery equipment and the front aperture welded over, then sent into service carrying twelve troops. They were first used in Operation Totalise south of Caen and subsequently in Canadian attacks on the various Channel ports, operated by the 1st Canadian Armoured Personnel Carrier Squadron. The Priests were subsequently returned to US custody and other vehicles used. The majority of vehicles converted were Canadian Ram tanks or Shermans and other Priests (which were sometimes referred to as "unfrocked" or "defrocked" Priests). The name Kangaroo was applied to any similar conversion. In Normandy they were operated by the 1st Canadian Armoured Carrier Regiment (1CACR) and the 49th Armoured Personnel Carrier Regiment under the 79th Armoured Division (called "Hobart's Funnies"). Kangaroos were then used throughout the campaign in northwest Europe.
Significance
A postwar Churchill Kangaroo viewed from the side
During the Second World War, most mechanized infantry were carried in light vehicles such as the Universal Carrier or M3 Halftrack. These vehicles had much better tactical mobility than a truck, but far less armour or mobility than a tank. This presented a tactical problem: if the carriers were needed so that Infantry could accompany tanks, they needed to be just as mobile and just as well protected, particularly since the Canadian and British formations had difficulty in replacing losses. The Kangaroo was the first attempt to solve this problem and, though they were expedient conversions, they largely solved the problem. The Kangaroo can be seen as the forerunner of the modern armoured personnel carrier.
External links
References
- The Battle for the Rhine 1944, 2005, Robin Neillands (chapter 7, The Battle for the Scheldt)
