Training included: M1 carbine Rifle marksmanship, mines, minefields, Demining fixed dry gullies bridge construct, floating Pontoon bridge construct, road repair-making, Military engineering vehicles-DUKW use, and other field combat problems.

[7] The operation captured Butera and participated in the Battle of Mazzarino, then moving on to Palermo.

They cleared lanes for landing craft by destroying the mine-bearing steel structures that the Germans had implanted in the intertidal zone.

To clear barricades, mine fields, fill in caters and break through thick hedgerows the 17th used M4 Sherman Tanks mounting with M1 bulldozer.

To counter, forces started with their main guns loaded with canister and pointed to the rear and to the flanks.

As the tanks crossed they fired parallel to the hedges, inflicting enemy casualties, this became known as "Roosevelt's Butchers,".

[8] From Omaha Beach the battalion pushed through the Cherbourg peninsula and built bridge across the Seine river in France.

As part of aftermath of the Battle of Fort Eben-Emael, the 17th and 82nd Armored Engineer Battalion work build a Bailey bridge across the Albert Canal at the village of Kanne.

During the construction, the engineers were fired on by enemy machine gun emplacements in the treeline on the far bank.

The gunfire missed the engineers and a US tank responded, firing several high-explosive rounds into the trees and silencing the enemy guns.

The 17th Armored Engineers was ordered to secure Merzenhausen and Barmen to cut off communication lines to the Roer as part of Operation Queen.

In Lonlay-l'Abbaye the 17th blew up a bridge in center of town before moving on to blow up an enemy ammunition dump.

Night of 23 March 1945, as part of the Western Allied invasion of Germany and Operation Plunder, Company E and C of the 17th Armored Engineer Battalion, constructed two treadway rafts to prepare of the crossing of the Rhine River about five kilometers south of Wesel.

Over 1152 feet of M2 treadway and 93 pneumatic floats were used in just six hours and fifteen minute construction project, record setting for the size of the bridge.

The saddle was the metal and plywood frame was placed on the float and supported the treadway tracks.

On 8 April 1945 division engineers constructed a pontoon bridge across the Weser Elbe Canal, west of, Harsum allowing Company "A" to continue its drive northeast to Braunschweig.

The engineers ferried two battalions across the Elbe river before starting the construction of the floating bridge at – Westerhusen.

But so much enemy artillery fire was raining in the engineers were ordered to abandon the bridge and load up their trucks and pull out, to prevent further damage.

[13] PFC William Horne with the 82nd Engineer Combat Regiment helping with the bridge was killed during construction.

[14][15] On 17 April the 17th Armored Engineered Battalion completed constructed of a bridge across the Elbe River at Magdeburg.

After World War II the 17th Armored Engineer Battalion was based in Dexheim, Germany.

An annual training event was installing a floating bridge across the Rhine River, like the Battalion did in World War II.

In 1978, Delta Company, 17th Engineers was stationed at Lucius D. Clay Kaserne in Garlstedt, Germany as part of 2nd Armored Division (Forward).