Description

740th Tank Battalion — “Daredevil Tankers”
 • World War II •

380 pages scanned. Instant PDF download.

Document Overview

Written by Lt. Col. George Kenneth Rubel and published in 1945, “Daredevil Tankers” tells the story of the 740th Tank Battalion, an independent GHQ unit that moved from division to division rather than staying attached to one — from its 1943 activation at Fort Knox through the Utah Beach landing, the Battle of the Ardennes, the Siegfried Line, the Ruhr Pocket, and on to the Baltic Sea at Wismar. This listing is a digital download of a scanned copy of the original book.

Campaigns: Normandy, Northern France, Ardennes-Alsace, Rhineland, Central Europe

Commanders: Lt. Col. George Kenneth Rubel (Battalion Commander and author)

Unit newspaper: unknown

Table of Contents

3rd May, 1945, German Soldiers Everywhere
740th Formed in Fort Knox, 1 March 1943
We Become a Special Battalion
In the Arizona Desert
Back in Fort Knox — On the Way to the European Theater
In the United Kingdom
Utah Beach
Belgium and Buzz Bombs
Von Rundstedt’s Breakthrough — Battle of the Ardennes
Thru the Siegfried Line
We Cross the Roer at Duren
Thru the Dragon’s Teeth Again with 7th U.S. Army
Back Up North and Into the Ruhr Pocket
The Lord Mayor of Dusseldorf
From Bleckede on the Elbe to Wismar on the Baltic Sea

“We were nomads, traveling from one hotspot to another, doing maintenance while on railroad trains, picking up and dropping tanks and all other kinds of vehicles on the fly. We were always in a terrible hurry.”
— Lt. Col. George Kenneth Rubel, Foreword