In British Commonwealth service, the White Scout Car was regarded more as an armored truck, reflected in the designation “Truck, 15cwt, 4×4, Armoured Personnel”, and was used in a variety of secondary roles, being issued to engineer, artillery (as an observation vehicle for field artillery observers) medical (as a protected ambulance) and signals units; within the Royal Armoured Corps’ Tank and Armoured Car Regiments it usually served in Squadron or Regimental headquarters. It was used by British Commonwealth forces in every theatre they fought in except Burma.^[2][7][8][16

This is a transcript of a letter my father wrote to The Telegraph in 2008, in response to that newspaper’s request for reminiscences.

Britain at War: Surrendering Germans  21 Oct 2008 

In July 1944, in a battle near Loretto, my battery (25 pounders) was supporting the 7th Hussars in crossing the river Musone. 

As an artillery observer in a White Scout car, we were moving towards the river, under constant enemy fire. Suddenly I heard a terrific bang on the door of my car; thinking that it was one of our men, I opened the door and to my immense surprise I saw an elderly German, armed with a bazooka and hand grenades on a stick. Two more Germans emerged from some bushes and all three wanted to surrender.

I reported my position to my superiors on the radio and was told to hand over to my nearest infantry men and move forward to the river. Before I handed over the Germans I asked them in my schoolboy  German why they had chosen my car to surrender. 

Their reply was simple, “We saw your car moving slowly and we thought that you were leading the attack”.

Jan Wysoki

My father often told this little anecdote, so I was pleased to find it recently amongst my emails.

It was only yesterday though that I found out what a White Scout car was. Thank goodness for Wikipedia!