The
2nd Battalion, 64th Armor descended from the 78th
Tank Battalion; activated on 13 January 1941 at Fort
Knox, Kentucky.
The Battalion
was redesignated as the 758th Tank Battalion and was
the first tank unit composed entirely of black soldiers.
One of these
soldiers designed the unit crest, which is still worn
by soldiers of the battalion – the rampant head
of a black African elephant symbolizing the soldiers’
pride in their heritage and their unit’s mission
of mobile, spearheading, armored warfare. The two
white tusks were reminiscent of the two white officers
which commanded the unit.
The 758th
served with distinction in the Italian campaign of
World War II, where it earned the first three of the
many campaign streamers on the battalion colors.
The battalion
next saw action in Korea, where it fought under the
colors of the 64th Heavy Tank Battalion.
There it
participated in a total of eight separate campaigns
and fought from the intervention of the Chinese Communist
Forces in November 1950 until the Cease-Fire in 1953.
Following
the Korean War, the 64th Heavy Tank Battalion was
reorganized as the 64th Armor Regiment, a parent regiment
under the Combined Arms Regimental System.
The 2nd Battalion,
64th Armor was born at this time, and with its three
sister battalions, helped to preserve freedom’s
frontier in the Federal Republic of Germany. Stationed
in Schweinfurt, it remained there 33 years until the
inactivation ceremony of 5 April 1996. It was the
second armored unit to receive the M-1 Abrams tank.
During its
tenure in Germany, companies of the Rogue Battalion
performed numerous REFORGERs (Return of Forces to
Germany), Winter Warriors, border missions, were
selected as the United States' representatives for
NATO’s Armor Competition, the Canadian
Army Trophy (CAT) in 1989 and participated in Peace Keeper 95.
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