Reptar Disbands, 511ths Stands Up

You know the old 40th Tank Battalion of WWII from this amazing period Kodachrome, showing the outfit’s M-4 Shermans lined up in a snow-covered field, near St. Vith, Belgium, just after the Battle of the Bulge. M4 Shermans in temporary position near St. Vith, Belgium, fire on enemy positions beyond the city. 40th Tank Battalion. 7th Armored Division.” Date: 24 January 1945. Salis, U.S. Army Signal Corps photo 111-SC-199467 Constituted 13 January 1941 in the peacetime Regular Army, the 40th Armored Regiment soon became the 40th Tank Bn. It was attached to the 7th Armored Division for the duration of the European War, earning campaign streamers for Normandy, Northern France, the Rhineland, the Ardennes (Alsace), and Central Europe. In the process of refitting with water-kit-equipped Shermans (as the 40th Amphibian Tractor Battalion) for the Olympic Landings in Japan, VJ Day caught up to the unit, and they were disbanded in February 1946. Cold War reactivation saw the unit attached to the…