[6] On 23 January 1944, the 735th boarded a troop train at Fort Lewis, bound for Camp Myles Standish, Massachusetts, en route for the European Theater of Operations.

[4][7] Once back on land, the battalion immediately boarded a troop train for Nuneaton, England and occupied a camp set up on Arbury Estate.

The battalion conducted individual and small unit training, much of it dismounted, and performed maintenance on their tanks while waiting to go into combat in France.

[2] Over the next several days the battalion trained for action in the French bocage and fitted hedge cutters to their tanks.

With the start of Operation Cobra, the battalion went on the offensive on 26 July, with Company A attacking Vidouville in support of the 2nd Infantry Regiment and losing seven tanks to enemy action, to a combination of mines and anti-tank gun fire.

[2][10] The tankers and the infantry they were supporting battled through the end of July to break out of the bocage against dogged German defense by the crack 9th and 15th Parachute Regiments.

At Angers, the 5th Infantry Division and the 735th Tank Battalion reoriented sharply to the left and began advancing northeast toward Paris.

[12] A final dash from 5–8 September allowed the battalion to reach the western approaches to Metz, but German resistance had already stiffened.

[14][15] Despite the heavy cost to seize the two towns, the 5th Infantry Division withdrew from both positions because of their untenable exposure to counterattack and artillery fires.

The tanks received special concrete piercing ammunition and towed “snakes”, long tubes of explosive similar to Bangalore torpedoes to be used for clearing obstacles.

The tankers suffered heavy losses, losing nine of sixteen tanks and 24 men killed, wounded or captured by 7 October, but enabled the infantry to penetrate the outer reaches of the fort.

Afterward, while the infantry were able to make modest gains against fierce German resistance, the tankers were not able to play a further role in the pitched battles in and under the bunkers, and the remaining tanks were kept on as part of the mobile reserve for the attack.

This indirect fire support quickly totaled over a thousand rounds of high explosive or smoke ammunition per day.

It was during this advance that 1st Platoon of Company A was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation and the French Croix de Guerre with Palm for its role supporting the 2nd Infantry Regiment in defending a critical bridgehead across the Neid River in the vicinity of Bazoncourt against six hard-pressed German counterattacks.

[20] On 19 November, in the vicinity of Retonfey, the assault gun section met the lead element of the 90th Reconnaissance Troop, 90th Infantry Division, attacking from the northern flank of Metz, and completed the encirclement of the city.

[21] The battalion then assisted in the reduction of the city, firing many hundreds of rounds of primarily captured French 75 mm white phosphorus (WP) rounds (which were of questionable quality and which required special firing pins)[21][22] at the remaining German held forts of Driant, Jeanne d’Arc, and Privot.

The WP rounds were intended to create sufficient heat and smoke within the underground bunkers to drive the defenders out, a tactic which was at least partially successful, and Fort Privot surrendered to a representative of the battalion and of the 11th Infantry Regiment on 29 November.

TF Bell crossed the border into Germany between Creutzwald and Völklingen on 5 December with the objective of overwhelming German resistance along the upper Saar River.

However, on 20 December, the battalion received orders to move to the vicinity of Stuckange, France, north of Metz near the Luxembourg border.

The battalion had to move in two parts, as Companies A and C were still in contact on the east side of the Saar river, at Saarlouis and Fraulautern, respectively, and had to disengage first.

The division moved north on an axis toward Wiltz and were in front of the town by year's end, and severed the Wiltz-Bastogne road in early January 1945.

The tankers had extreme difficulty maneuvering in the rugged and icy terrain, and found that at times the M5 light tanks were better able to negotiate the cold conditions.

Through the remainder of January, the 735th supported the 26th Infantry Division to help seal off the “Bulge” and restore a coherent front in the sector.

Their forced inactivity was primarily due to rainy and snowy weather and the resulting poor road conditions, but did allow them to perform much needed maintenance on the vehicles.

The tankers cooperated with tank destroyers (TD's) armed with 90 mm guns to systematically reduce pillboxes in the West Wall, clearing the way for the infantry to seize first Ormont, then Reuth and Kerschenbach by 5 March.

The battalion supported the division's advance past Giessen toward Eisenach through Thuringia and Saxony, taking Plauen on 17 April.

[39] In early fall 1945, the battalion redeployed to one of the cigarette camps located around Le Havre to await their ship back to the United States.