705th Tank Destroyer Battalion The 705th Tank Destroyer Battalion was a tank destroyer battalion of the United States Army active during the Second World War . It was originally formed from artillery elements of the 5th Armored Division , and its lineage is today perpetuated by the 75th Cavalry Regiment . The battalion operated in northern France with Third Army in 1944 , where it fought in Brittany at the capture of Brest , and then along the Moselle River , reaching Germany at the end of the year . During the Battle of the Bulge , it was engaged at the Siege of Bastogne along with the 101st Airborne Division , where it received the Presidential Unit Citation , and in the spring of 1945 it advanced through southern Germany with the 11th Armored Division , reaching Austria by the end of the war . Early service . The battalion was formed in December 1941 , around a cadre taken from the 58th Armored Field Artillery Battalion , part of the 5th Armored Division . It trained in California and Texas , equipped with M3 GMC s , before moving to Oregon in early 1943 and receiving the new M10 Wolverine tank destroyer . Whilst at the Tank Destroyer Center in Texas , they were described by General A . D . Bruce as " the finest " tank destroyer battalion yet trained . The battalion transferred to New York , and then boarded the liner " Queen Elizabeth " on 18 April for the voyage to the United Kingdom . It arrived in Scotland on the 27th , and set up camp in southern England on 1 June . France . The battalion sailed for Normandy in July , and was landed at Utah Beach on the 18th , equipped with M18 Hellcat tank destroyers . After two weeks of being held in reserve , they were moved to the front line on the 31st and attached to a task force of Third Army which was assigned to capture the ports along the north coast of Brittany ; it pushed through Avranches and turned westwards towards Brest ; from 6 to 16 August B Company was attached to the 83rd Infantry Division . On 17 August , the battalion liberated the town of Paimpol , on the north coast of Brittany . On 23 August , one company ( B ) was assigned to the 2nd Infantry Division , fighting in the Battle for Brest ; it was released on 19 September . Meanwhile , the remainder of the battalion was employed fighting on the Crozon Peninsula to the south of the port through September . A shortage of M18s in the supply chain – most battalions in France were equipped with M10s at the time – led to the battalion being assigned a number of M4A3 Shermans , which carried the same 76mm gun , as temporary replacements . The battalion regrouped in late September , and trained replacements , before moving to the Moselle River . The battalion was attached to the 95th Infantry Division on 15 October , and deployed to relieve the 818th Tank Destroyer Battalion in the Pagny bridgehead on the 20th . It withdrew from the bridgehead in early November , after providing indirect fire support , and was released by the 95th Division on 2 November . It crossed the Moselle again and moved northeast , crossing the border into Germany near Merschweiler on 18 November . Ardennes . On 16 December , the Germans launched a major offensive throughout the Ardennes region of the Western Front , which would later become known as the Battle of the Bulge . The 705th , under the command of Lieutenant - Colonel Clifford D . Templeton , was ordered by Ninth Army to move south in the evening of 18 December , and join VIII Corps at Bastogne , a town on a critical road junction in the southern Ardennes . After delays to secure the town of Laroche , and a short engagement in which the command group was attacked , the command and combat elements of the battalion had fully arrived in Bastogne late on the night of 19 December . Templeton detached two platoons to hold a bridge at Ortheuville and a platoon to Laroche , and the supply and support elements were sent west , escorted by a single M18 and instructed to " hook up with some big friends " . A platoon was sent north from Bastogne on the early morning of the 20th to help relieve Task Force Desobry , defending the northeast approaches to the town . The platoon , accompanying a battalion of paratroopers , blunted the attack of 2nd Panzer Division , destroying a number of German tanks . The battalion was formally attached to the 101st Airborne Division , the formation holding Bastogne , on 20 December , and was engaged throughout the siege , fighting a number of small actions . It provided a major part of the 101st ' s combat capabilities ; on the 21st , the total armoured reserve available other than the 705th amounted to about forty operable medium tank s . On the 24th , it was distributed between the 101st ' s regiments ; a platoon to the 501st , two to the 506th , two to the 502nd and four to the 327th , with one platoon deployed as a reserve in the town itself . On the 25th , Christmas Day , it was engaged in the thick of the fighting ; an attack by eighteen Panzer IV s of 15th Panzergrenadier Division was broken up by M18s of the battalion . One half of the attack was caught in a close - range action by units of the 502nd PIR and a platoon of B Company ; two M18s were knocked out at the start of the engagement , but the other pair quickly accounted for three Panzer IVs . The other half , meanwhile , was caught in a crossfire between four M18s , a group of M4 Shermans , a group of 105mm howitzer s and infantry bazooka s and destroyed . Throughout the siege , the battalion destroyed around 40 German tanks , and lost only six M18s . The battalion remained stationed in Bastogne for the remainder of the Battle of the Bulge , being released by the 101st on 18 January , and withdrawn to rest and refit . The battalion would later be awarded the Presidential Unit Citation for its role in the defence of Bastogne . Germany . The battalion was attached to Combat Command B of the 11th Armored Division , part of Third Army , on 24 February , and committed to action on 1 March , when the commanding officer was killed in action . He was succeeded by Major John Dibble . The battalion crossed the Kyll River on 6 March , and pushed towards the Rhine with the 11th Armored , fighting all through March . The 705th crossed the Rhine at Oppenheim on 29 March , and continued to advance across southern Germany in April , seeing action in a number of small engagements . The battalion liberated two prisoner - of - war hospitals and a large forced - labour camp , and late in the month arrived at the Flossenbürg and Buchenwald concentration camps . The battalion crossed the border into Austria on 1 May , and linked up with Soviet Army troops on 8 May , the day that the German surrender was announced . Postwar service . The battalion began occupation duties near Linz in June , and was inactivated in July . During its year in Europe , it lost 48 men , of whom 30 were killed at Bastogne , and received the Presidential Unit Citation . The battalion ' s lineage is currently maintained by the 1st Squadron , 75th Cavalry Regiment ( 1 – 75 CAV ) .