headquarters company and all the mess sections were consolidated to operate as a single mess team for the battalion. Companies A, B, C, and D – each company had three tank platoons which, for the first time, were reduced to four tanks per platoon. The company headquarters section still had two tanks, for a total of 14 tanks per company. Initially, the tanks were M60A1 variants, but were later replaced with M1 Abrams tanks. World War II Activation and early service The 70th Tank Battalion was formed as an independent medium tank battalion on 15 July 1940 at Fort Meade, Maryland from elements of the 34th Infantry Regiment and the 67th Infantry Regiment (Medium Tanks). This made the 70th Tank Battalion one of the founding units of the new armored force of the U.S. Army, along with the I Armored Corps and 1st and 2nd Armored Divisions, and the first tank battalion not assigned to an armored division. Despite its initial designation as a medium tank battalion, the 70th was organized as a light tank battalion and received only light tanks. With roots in the Regular Army at a time when the U.S. Army was rapidly expanding with draftees, the battalion was initially able to select junior officers, sergeants, and new soldiers of superior qualities. This included the top graduates of Officer Candidate School and only high school graduate enlisted men (at a time when high school graduates were a small part of the population). In addition to home station training at Fort Meade, the battalion trained at Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania and Fort Knox, Kentucky in early 1941. In June 1941, the battalion began its association with the 1st Infantry Division with which it would later serve in combat when Company A began practicing amphibious landings with the division at New River, North Carolina. On the basis of this training experience, the 1st Infantry Division and the 70th Tank Battalion were alerted for deployment on 4 January 1942, less than a month after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The battalion (minus Company C) sailed with the 1st Infantry Division on 9 January 1942 for the pro-Nazi Vichy French island of Martinique in the West Indies in order to deny the island and its American-built P-40 aircraft as an Axis base of operations in the Western Hemisphere. On the basis of the show of force off the coast of Martinique, the