The 740th Tank Battalion was formed at Fort Knox, Kentucky, in March, 1943. The original cadre of officers and non-commissioned officers came from Camp Polk, Louisiana. Most of the young men in the initial compliment of troops came from Texas and Oklahoma, although virtually every state in the union was eventually represented.
Following basic training, the battalion was selected to participate in one of the Army's most closely guarded secrets at the time - the use of high intensity carbon arc lamps in tanks to blind the enemy in night fighting, an idea to revolutionize tank warfare. The 740th was assigned to "Special Training Group" and moved on October 1 to Camp Bouse in the Desert Training Center near Phoenix, Arizona, for specialized training.
Lieutenant Colonel George K. Rubel, who helped found and establish the camp, assumed command of the 740th in November, 1943. In his book, Daredevil Tankers, written at the end of the war, Colonel Rubel said, "We adopted a motto that we would do everything first and do it better than anyone else."
In April, 1944, the battalion returned to Fort Knox for movement overseas. Three months later, they were ordered to Camp Kilmer, New Jersey. In late July, 1944, in a huge convoy of ships, they sailed out into the Atlantic Ocean and headed for England.
With the devastation of war all around them, the tankers came to appreciate the courage and determination of the British people. England was special to them. It was a land that they had only read about in their history books back home.
In late October, 1944, the battalion loaded into GI trucks, then on two LSTs, and crossed the English Channel, landing in the choppy waters of Utah Beach. As they began a slow trek across France, they picked up a motorcycle escort through Paris and learned of their assignment to the First U.S. Army, as a standard tank battalion, with the code name Daredevil, and with their destination Aubel/Neufchateau, Belgium. They never knew what happened to the special project.
Their long column of trucks, half-tracks, and jeeps plowed through the rain and mud across France and into Belgium, where they immediately began to see bombed out villages and shot up vehicles along the way. Cold and miserable, the battalion rumbled into Aubel, then Neufchateau, where they settled into an apple orchard for the night.
It was November 6, 1944, and Franklin D. Roosevelt has been elected to an unprecedented fourth term as President of the United States back home.
That night, the tankers counted some 50 V-1 Buzz Bombs passing hellishly close overhead, headed for targets behind the American lines.
Two days later, the tankers moved into billits in the towns of Neufchateau and Montroux, where they were warmly welcomed by the people and where they made lasting friendships - never to be forgotten, and very much in evidence to this very day.
On December 16, 1944, the Ardennes exploded, and the Germans broke through this weak spot in the Western Front. Entire units were overrun. The 740th was called into the breach.
The tankers hated to leave their newfound Belgian friends. They understood the heartache and suffering these people had been through. But it was time to go.
On December 18, the tankers of the 740th said their goodbyes and headed for the ordnance depot at Sprimont, where they worked through the night to make battle ready the few vehicles available. The next day the untested young tankers roared out in a ragtag column of tanks, headed for Remouchamps, and thence to destiny in the Ambleve Valley.
At Stoumont Station, on December 19, 1944, with elements of the 30th Infantry Division, the 740th smashed headlong into the 1st SS Panzer Division's spearhead, Kampfgruppe Peiper, lead by the infamous Jochen Peiper, who had just come from Malmedy.
They blooded Peiper's nose and turned his Kampfgruppe around. Then, in bitter fighting and in the fog and the icy rain and snow, they pursued Peiper on through Targnon, Stoumont, and LaGleize, where he slipped quietly away with what was left of his armor and his troops. The 740th lost six tanks and 10 wounded, but no tanker had been killed in their first battle in what came to be called the Battle of the Bulge.
In a Christmas Day disaster, a company of the 740th was bombed and strafed by American P-47 Thunderbolts, leaving one tank knocked out and three tankers wounded.
Units of the 740th would later receive a Presidential Unit Citation for a job well done in Battle of the Bulge engagements.
The battalion withdrew to Spa, and was immediately sent to support the 82nd Airborne Division, near Werbomont, on December 29. The weather was bitterly cold - some said the worst winter in 40 years.
The 740th was split up by companies, even platoons at times, to strike south and east with various elements of the 82nd Airborne. Beginning January 3, 1945, the tankers combined with the 82nd to push the Germans out of Heirlot, Amcomont, Reharmont, and Fosse, then Odrimont and Abrefontaine. The division soon dominated all the crossings of the Salm River in the vicinity of Grand Halleux.
On January 28, in a heavy snow, driven by a strong wind, they attacked in force in the vicinity of Recht, Medell, and Meyerode.
It was impossible to walk, and wheeled vehicles could not negotiate the snow at all. So the paratroopers loaded up on the backs of the tanks, and off they went, often dragging a trailer loaded with rations, machine guns, frying pans, and extra ammunition.
The tankers rolled on: Holzheim, Herresbach, Valender, Wereth, Lanzerath, Honsfeld, Medendorf, and the Chateau Igelemonderhof. By the end of January, they were all the way to Losheimer Graben.
The Battle of the Ardennes was declared officially over on January 28, 1945. Both the weather and gunfire had taken a heavy toll on the 740th. So many tanks had been destroyed that companies were down to about half strength.
In February, 1945, they continued to attack day and night toward the Siegfried line. Colonel Rubel said, "...the only tankers who were lucky enough to get a night's sleep were the ones who remained alive after their tanks had been hit."
There was heavy resistance in the vicinity of Neuhof and Udenbreth, Germany; and the Assault Gun Battery helped break up several large-scale counter attacks. When they finally penetrated the Siegfried Line in that area, the tankers had been fighting steadily for seven days and nights and had only 18 operational tanks remaining, with barely enough men to go around.
The badly battered battalion was relieved on February 6, and withdrew to Hebronval, Belgium, where they received a letter of commendation from Maj. General James M. Gavin of the 82nd Airborne.
Almost before they could catch their breath, the battalion was transferred to the First U.S. Army's 8th Infantry Division. By February 8, they were back in Germany, just west of Duren. The scene was one of utter devastation.
The new German ME 262 jet planes began to appear over the front lines about this time, and the tankers watched them streak across the sky with American fighter planes in helpless pursuit.
The assault across the Ruhr began with a massive artillery barrage on February 23. While the engineers struggled to get bridges built, the infantry poured across the river in rubber boats and anything else that would float. The tanks crossed on a Bailey Bridge at Duren the next day. The town was all but destroyed and was virtually cleared of the enemy by nightfall.
From Duren to Cologne was a nightmare of attachment and detachment from one regiment to another for the 740th. The battalion was drastically short of tanks, and there were no replacements. In order to repair a tank, Service Company had to recover a damaged or knocked out tank, at times under fire, then hope and pray it had the parts or pieces needed.
With the tanks restricted to the highroads and the infantry on the backs of their tanks, the 740th advanced rapidly until rumbling into a "hot spot." The infantry would then dismount and sweep the area, while the tanks covered their movements with machine gun and cannon fire.