Armoured Cars, Tanks, Other Vehicles... & Pith Helmets.

A thread for pictures, and links to pictures, of Military Vehicles accompanied by gents in Pith Helmets (preferably also including Jodphured officers and inappropriately small dogs, but that's not compulsory.)
Debate about Solar Topees and or Pith also welcome, but for the purposes of this thread, either will do..

A Corker or two on Ken's thread here:
WD Number Query (and excellent vehicle photographs).
eg.:



Some from IWM Collections:
Imperial War Museum Collections Online Database


Senior officers inspecting a Carden-Loyd Mk.VI machine gun carrier at a barracks somewhere in India.


DESCRIPTION:
Scenes with a marching column on the North West Frontier of India: Crossley (India pattern) armoured cars and crews parked-up during the march. All crewmen are wearing Royal Tank Corps issue overalls.
FURTHER INFORMATION:
Crossley armoured cars did not prove popular with their crews who found them underpowered and underbraked due to the weight of the armoured body. Brakes were fitted to the rear wheels only which made handling these cars on the mountainous roads of the North-West Frontier of India a tricky business.


DESCRIPTION:
Scenes with a marching column on the North West Frontier of India: Crossley (India pattern) armoured car and crew parked-up during the march.


Rolls-Royce armoured car 'Cerberus' of a Royal Air Force Armoured Car Company in the Iraqi desert.

From one tasteful chap's Flickr set:

This one has a pipe-smoker too. Perfect:
Rolls Royce Armoured Car | Flickr - Photo Sharing!
The future Mr Shaw:
T E Lawrence in a Rolls Royce | Flickr - Photo Sharing!
Smart as Carrots:
Rolls Royce | Flickr - Photo Sharing!
Get the kids involved early:
Wedding Bells | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Not sure where this one's from, but I feel it truly exemplifies the superior fighting spirit of any unit that deploys the tropical headgear:


~A

 

Get 'em scanned mate, they look great.

This seems what gets Adam excited
I'm actually quite tempted by another thread for British Officers and small dogs of the 20s and 30s...


Britain's Crossley-Chevrolet Armored Cars - World War II Vehicles, Tanks, and Airplanes




IMCDb.org: Rolls-Royce 40/50 h.p. Armoured Car Mk.1 in "The First World War, 2003"


The other armored vehicles of Great Britain

Afrika hats:


The Boxy lines of a Kubel enhanced by an elegant choice of hat:
Fort History


Bundesarchiv - Picture database: Simple search










Snappy dressers, always ready to keep up with the latest fashion trends:

 

Italian style...one wearing it back to front, how avant garde.


German and Italian prisoners captured during recent fighting in Libya, 1 June 1942.


Italian prisoners being escorted back by men of the 50th Division in a captured German kubelwagen car, 20 June 1942.


http://www.ww2incolor.com/d/320526-2/AB41ComFlagForward
Regio Esercito armored car Autoblinda 41 in North Africa 1941
http://www.ww2incolor.com/italian-forces/AB41ComFlagForward.html

 

Italians eh?
Some Frenchies wearing the correct headgear:
[YOUTUBE][/YOUTUBE]

Damned stylish:

CITROËN - Crossing the Sahara

 

More good stuff. I feel the modern British Army could learn a thing or two about sartoriality from these chaps.
A Quad is pretty late Pith style deployment, and in Malta Stonewall to boot! The epitome of motorised military style.

And this:
1939: D31
Is a fine website.
3rdCARABINIERS
3rd Carabiniers - Feather & Carbine editions

I was hoping there might be a sensible spin-off or two from this.

 

Very nice Dave, particularly that first one of Winston C.

I kind of held off on Wingate, perhaps the obvious Tropical lid wearer of WW2, but then thought, 'what the hell', and looked.
Now finding it annoyingly hard to find a pic of him in the hat, and on or near a vehicle. I thought at least a Jeep would be easy.

Can any of you fashion spotters find one?

 

Major General O C Wingate (1903 - 1944): Wingate, 'Gideon Force' Commander, talking with the Emperor Haile Selassie of Abyssinia.

 

Curses, I should have gone straight to the good grooming pages of IWM collections shouldn't I.
Good man.

Jah Selassie too, class.

 

1898.
The Italian attache and military observer, Count Calderari and the Director of Military Intelligence, Colonel Sir Francis Wingate standing in front of railway trucks on the Sudan Military Railway, possibly near Atbara.




1898.
The Director of Military Intelligence, Colonel Sir Francis Wingate, talking to an Arab civilian on leaving a train on the Sudan Military Railway, possibly near Atbara. Colonel Wingate spoke fluent Arabic. The Arab is probably Mohammed Fadl, a Sudanese spy from Dafur who was imprisoned and mutilated by the Khalifa. His right hand and left foot had been amputated as punishment

 

September 1943.
Wartime Entertainers: Noel Coward, British playwright and entertainer, with a British army officer arriving at an airfield for a visit to the British troops stationed in Persia and Iraq. Noel Coward was one of the few star entertainers who braved the harsh living conditions to visit the men of the PAI [Persia and Iraq] Force. He is wearing a pith helmet with tropical kit.

 

OK so this is a ship but what I want to know is why has a U-Bootman need a pith helmet?

9 September 1943.
U-boat prisoners at Greenock, Scotland transferring from HMS REVENGE to board a tender en route for internment. Note the pith helmet being carried by the first of the prisoners.

 

North Vietnamese Army. A pith helmet wearing chap.


an EX-NVA regular sent this picture of a couple of guys in his unit. His name is 'Quang Phan Vinh
Image courtesy of Ron Woodgeard


Vietnam Helicopter insignia and artifacts - Bad Guys




A North Vietnamese tank crashes through the gates of the Presidential Palace in Saigon on April 30, 1975. The taking of the palace marked the fall of the U.S.-backed south and the end to a decade of fighting.

NVA Tanks