Сформирован 20 сентября 1943 г.
The 22nd Tank Battalion, originally the 3rd Battalion, 42nd Armored Regiment was activated on August 15, 1942, with the 11th Armored Division at Camp Polk, Louisiana. The officer and enlisted cadres were drawn from other armored divisions. Draftees and enlistments brought the battalion up to its full strength of 700 officers and men. The tank battalion was the main offensive striking force of an armored division.
Like the 11th, the 22nd Battalion consisted of a headquarters and Headquarters Company, three medium tank companies, a light tank company and a service company. The battalion trained with the division at Camp Polk and participated in Third Army maneuvers in Louisiana and Texas in June-August, 1943. In September, the division moved to Camp Barkeley Texas.
In October the 11th Armored shifted west again, to Camp Ibis, California, in the Mojave Desert. After desert warfare training, the 11th Armored, nicknamed the "Thunderbolt" Division, headed farther west to Camp Cooke, California on the Pacific coast.
In September 1944, the division moved back east to Camp Kilmer, New Jersey to await overseas shipment. The division boarded a troopship for England, landing at Southampton The men moved inland to camps on the Salisbury Plain and awaited orders for France.
On December 16, the Thunderbolts sailed across the English Channel to France. The division was needed; on December 16, the Germans launched a surprise attack on a 50-mile front in the Ardennes Forest of Belgium. The American lines were shoved back for several miles in what would be called the Battle of the Bulge.
В составе 11-й бронетанковой дивизии. |
