A 15 November 1917 story in the Baltimore Evening Star stated:[6] If His Satanic Majesty happened to drop around at the American University training camp to-day, he would see the "Hell Fire Battalion" at work and might blush with envy.
[7] On 24 December 1917, the first two companies of the regiment deployed to France as part of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF), still with no equipment or training for chemical warfare.
Five platoons completed a five-week training course and began offensive operations under supervision of the Special Brigade on 2 March, only 93 days after formal organization.
[11] The 30th Engineers won three campaign streamers – Flanders 1918, Lys, and Lorraine 1918 which are still carried on the battalion colors today.
Therefore, the regiment was assigned to road repairs and the men performed this task with such excellence that they were praised by the I Corps Commanding General for “maintaining practically the entire line of communication upon which the advancing Divisions were dependent” which was “of first importance” to the success of the campaign.
[13] Meanwhile, officers and picked weapon squads demonstrated to American combat commanders the effectiveness of their gas weaponry.
[14] This began a tradition still demonstrated by the Red Dragons today: gaining trust and confidence by excelling at onerous, off-mission work, and using persuasion and education to ensure their chemical capabilities are used most effectively.
Confounding the view that gas weapons were static, members of the regiment began carrying their Stokes mortars along with the advancing infantry to assist by taking out enemy machine gun positions and other strong points.
They conducted demonstrations with Stokes mortars and Livens projectors and taught the Chemical Warfare Course for all Army officers.
Being trained with tear gas, their responsibilities included crowd control and periodic field exercises were conducted to practice this mission as well as combat operations.
The new weapon had a rifled barrel that give it unprecedented accuracy, and a firm base structure that allowed firing up to 20 rounds per minute.
[19] After Pearl Harbor the battalion spent several months performing guard duty at aircraft manufacturing plants, public water supplies and other potentially sensitive points.
The Red Dragons laid an eight-hour smoke screen on a 3500-yard front to protect the infantry which was under direct observation and fire from the ridge.
[28][29] The unit participated in the Naples-Foggia and Rome-Arno campaigns, then prepared for the invasion of southern France in operation ANVIL-DRAGOON, Company A joined the First Airborne Task in a glider assault 15 miles inland from the beaches.
[21] Significant events included defending the flank of 3rd Army during the Battle of the Bulge, assault on the Maginot line,[34] liberation of the Dachau concentration camp, and the capture of a town named Traunstein.
[36] In Traunstein HQ Company captured a young Luftwaffe deserter named Joseph Ratzinger, who later would become Pope Benedict XVI.
For the next year and a half, the Red Dragons trained to a high state of readiness under the command of Lieutenant Colonel V. H. Bell.
The battalion received movement orders on 7 September 1950 and moved so quickly that 47 days later, on 24 October, they fired their first combat mission.
[48] The association of these two units continued for almost six months, and after the war the 27th gave the Red Dragons a set of ceremonial drums like the one they used on parade, which rest today in battalion HQ at Fort Cavazos.
[49] On 14 February 1951, the Red dragons, still with the 27th Commonwealth Brigade, played a critical role in saving the US 23rd Infantry which was surrounded at Chipyong-ni by 90,000 Chinese troops.
Their presidential citation for this period reads in part, “…the men of this Battalion moved along the entire width of the battle-line, emplacing where the fighting was heaviest, inflicting tremendous casualties among attackers, and redeploying as soon as a relative lull occurred to yet another sector where the savage battle flared anew.” [51][52] This was one of four citations that the battalion earned during the war.
The M58 Wolf, also based on the M113, was introduced in 1998 but never fully replaced the M1059.The Red Dragons used M-1059s in Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom until the last ones were retired in 2005.
Headquarters and the 46th Chemical Company (Smoke Dawgs) were part of the VII Corps race across the desert in the “100-Hour War,” travelling 375 kilometers (233 miles.)
When hostilities ceased on 28 February, the battalion took up position in Kuwait for maintenance/recovery operations and supporting VII Corps in humanitarian assistance.
During this period the battalion participated heavily in development of the M93 Fox NBCRS (Nuclear Biological and Chemical Reconnaissance System) based on the German TPz Fuchs.
During this period beginning in 1990 the M1135 Nuclear Biological Chemical Reconnaissance Vehicle (Stryker) system was deployed to replace the Fox.
Under this concept the battalion, in addition to readiness for overseas deployment, was tasked to respond to major CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear) incidents in the US, whether of foreign or domestic origin.
Two years later the DCRF mission rotated to another chemical unit, and the battalion returned to it historical makeup of HHC and four operating companies.
In September of that year 42 soldiers deployed to San Jose Island Panama to demilitarize a collection of 500-pound phosgene bombs abandoned from a World War II storage facility.
The phrase “Flammis Vincimus” is Latin for “We conquer with Fire,” referring to the units use of dedicated offensive chemical weapons in World War I.