Upon the basis of this meager but unique training experience, the 1st Infantry Division and the 70th Tank Battalion were alerted for deployment on 4 January 1942, less than a month after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

The sailing generated rumors of conducting an actual landing on the island of Martinique, which was a Caribbean outpost of Vichy France and whose Fort-de-France Bay was one of the best deepwater ports in the Western Hemisphere.

As Allied units closed on Bizerte and Tunis in the final stages of the campaign, German and Italian troops preferred to surrender to the company of American light tanks rather than the British or French.

The battalion began to receive new tanks to replace ones lost in combat and continued training for the next campaign, and naturally assumed they would be part of the Italian mainland invasion force.

Although the engineers proved invaluable during the landings and subsequent combat in the Normandy hedgerows, the new personnel required a last minute shuffle of tank crews.

[40] Company D, landing at H+260 was to link up with the 101st Airborne Division and provide them tank support as the paratroopers secured the causeways leading inland from the beaches.

[42][43] The following day, the medium tank companies assisted the 8th Infantry Regiment in consolidating the beachhead by clearing the pockets of German resistance in and around Ste.

[45][46][47] Following the consolidation of the initial invasion objectives, the 70th Tank Battalion continued in support of the 4th Infantry Division as they moved northward to take the port city of Cherbourg, which fell on 27 June.

After sustaining heavy casualties, the division and the battalion were withdrawn from the line on 15 July to rest and refit preparatory to playing a key role in the breakout from Normandy.

Following the disastrous air bombardments of 24–25 July 1944, in which the 70th Tank Battalion only suffered minor material losses,[51] the 8th Infantry Regiment began the assault across the St. Lô-Périers road.

[58][59] The ongoing limited supply of fuel for the tanks during much of this period did nothing to improve the outlook, though it did help restore the combat strength of the unit-strength which would be needed in their next operation.

The battalion suffered 8 killed and 39 wounded in three weeks of combat in the Hürtgen Forest, with 10 tanks lost and another 8 damaged due to enemy fire and mines.

[67] On 8–9 March, the battalion (minus Company C), participated in a raid as part of Task Force Rhino, and advanced 30 km northeast to the town of Reifferscheid—nearly half of the remaining distance to the Rhine River.

[68] After this successful deep penetration into German territory, the battalion unexpectedly received orders attaching them to the Seventh Army, far to the south in France, and to prepare for a long road march.

They took Rothenburg ob der Tauber on 18 April, and proceeded as quickly as possible with elements of the 4th Infantry Division along divergent routes to capture Ansbach and Crailsheim.

The battalion served as part of the training cadre at the Armor Center and School at Fort Knox until it was alerted for combat deployment to Korea in July 1950.

[72] At the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950, the 70th Heavy Tank Battalion was still performing its duties as a support unit for the Armor School at Fort Knox.

The battalion boarded the USNS General A. W. Brewster at Fort Mason, California on 23 July, with their vehicles and equipment loaded on separate cargo transport.

[78] As the American units began to break out of the Pusan Perimeter, they suffered numerous casualties to mines that the Koreans laid in their path of advance.

[81] After several days of "mopping up" operations, the battalion moved on 4 October to the vicinity of Wijon-ni to prepare for crossing the Imjin River as American and United Nations troops continued to advance northward.

In February 1951, the battalion supported the 1st Cavalry Division on the left flank of IX Corps in carrying out limited offensive operations northward from Kumyangjang-ni.

[86] The battalion resumed aggressive patrolling in the 1st Cavalry Division sector into early April 1951, along with limited offensive objectives reaching Wonchang-ni.

[87] By 11 April, warming weather, which began to thaw the ground, and flooding by the communists of the lowlands below the Hwacheon Reservoir, forced the 70th Heavy Tank Battalion into inactivity, and they were moved out of the line in order to conduct much-needed repairs and maintenance on their vehicles and to take on new replacement personnel.

In late May 1951, the mission changed from combat patrols to direct support of the cavalry regiments as they advanced on an axis from Seoul to Uijongbu, thence north to the Imjin River in the vicinity of Cheorwon.

At the time of reorganization, the units were designated as follows:[100] After Saddam Hussein ordered Iraqi forces into Kuwait in August 1990, the 1st Armored Division was alerted for deployment from Germany to Saudi Arabia to participate in Operation Desert Shield.

Both battalions crossed the border into Iraq when the ground campaign of Operation Desert Storm began on 24 February 1991 and participated in several sharp engagements.

While there, the battalion served as the vehicle for an Advanced Warfighter Exercise to test new digitized command and control equipment in a realistic operational environment.

With the 101st for the remainder of the maneuver phase of the war, 2–70th Armor continued to clear routes, secure areas and destroy enemy forces in the vicinity of Baghdad, and Karbala.

[107] While in Afghanistan, the unit was assigned the dual missions of continuing patrols in the vicinity of Tarin Kowt and Deh Rawod to disrupt the Taliban insurgency and to train Afghan National Police forces in order to assume responsibility for taking over security of the region.

[111] Constituted 15 July 1940 in the Regular Army as the 70th Tank Battalion and activated at Fort George G. Meade, Maryland Inactivated 1 June 1946 in Germany Activated 1 August 1946 at Fort Knox, Kentucky Reorganized and redesignated 14 June 1948 as the 70th Medium Tank Battalion Reorganized and redesignated 31 December 1948 as the 70th Heavy Tank Battalion Reorganized and redesignated 2 May 1950 as the 70th Tank Battalion Assigned 10 November 1951 to the 1st Cavalry Division Inactivated 15 October 1957 in Japan and relieved from assignment to the 1st Cavalry Division Redesignated 25 January 1963 as the 70th Armor, a parent regiment under the Combat Arms Regimental System Withdrawn 16 June 1989 from the Combat Arms Regimental System and reorganized under the United States Army Regimental System