Fort George G. Meade: The First 100 Years

America’s First Tank Unit
In autumn 1917, Gen. John J. Pershing, commander of
the American Expeditionary Forces in France, decided
that the AEF needed to form an armored fighting force.
In October 1917 then-Capt.. George S. Patton, Jr., was
directed to establish a light tank training school at Camp
Meade. Along with Lt. Elgin Braine, Patton was part of the
first pair of American officers assigned to the AEF “tank
service.” Pershing later tapped Col. (future Brig. Gen.)
Samuel Rockenbach to head what would become the
Tank Corps. In January 1918 Rockenbach recommended
that the AEF form 60 light and 15 heavy tank companies,
and planned on providing each AEF corps with a tank
brigade consisting of two light tank battalions and one
heavy tank battalion. The AEF never actually fielded a
fully formed tank brigade before the Armistice.
Patton is often thought of as the original Tank Corps
officer, but the first purposely-created American armored
combat unit began life at Camp Meade as the 65th
Engineer Battalion. Established in mid-February 1918,
the unit’s first commanding officer was 311th Engineers’
Maj. Henry Stephens. On Mar. 6, a younger officer arrived
from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. to replace him: Capt.
Dwight David Eisenhower.
Within a few days Eisenhower announced that he was
traveling to New York City to schedule transportation
to Europe. A young sergeant named John Franklin, a
native of nearby Cockeysville, Maryland, and former
Harvard University rower, arranged for Eisenhower to
meet his father, Philip A. S. Franklin. The elder Franklin
was president of International Mercantile Marine, parent
company of the White Star Line that had owned doomed
luxury liner Titanic. In 1918 he was responsible for
coordinating trans-Atlantic transportation as chairman of
the Shipping Control Committee. Franklin arranged for
Eisenhower’s men to sail aboard Titanic’s huge sister ship,
Olympic.
Naturally, Eisenhower expected to take the unit
overseas. Instead, he was bitterly disappointed when on
Mar. 28, Olympic steamed into the gray seas without
him. Eisenhower had been ordered to take Company
D contingent to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania to form a
tank training school, soon designated Camp Colt. John
Franklin recalled Eisenhower’s eyes welling up when he
BETWEEN THE WARS
By Anita Burdette-Dragoo
realized he was not going.
The unit was redesignated 301 st Tank Battalion. It was
under that rubric that the unit became the only American
heavy tank unit to see combat during the First World War.
When it finally returned to the U.S. in March 1919, it was
part of a fully-formed brigade, the 306th. John Franklin,
now a captain, commanded Company A; its original
commanding officer, Kit Varney, had been killed in action
on Sept. 29, 1918. Demobilization of the 306th, George
Patton’s also-complete 304 th Brigade and the 305 th and
307th Brigades, took place at newly constructed Franklin
Cantonment, a facility originally built for the Signal Corps
adjacent to Camp Meade. Domestic tank training units
at places like Camp Polk, North Carolina, also arrived
during the spring and summer of 1919 for demobilization.
Franklin Cantonment (later Camp Franklin) later was
subsumed by Fort Meade’s expansion, and is outlined by
Ernie Pyle Road, Chamberlin Avenue, Mapes Road, and
Rock Avenue.
Events surrounding 301st Battalion’s creation were
a formative experience for both Eisenhower and John
Franklin, although they likely did not fully realize it at the
time. Eisenhower would go on to lead American forces
to victory in Europe during WWII, having learned much
from his organizational experience in WWI. In 1952,
Eisenhower was elected president, and eventually moved
to Gettysburg, a stone’s throw from Camp Colt. After the
Tank Corps was disestablished as part of the National
Defense Act of 1920 (which placed tanks under the Chief
of Infantry), Eisenhower and Patton worked on armored
warfare concepts at Camp Meade where they briefly
served together and formed a lasting friendship.
The Eisenhower and Patton quarters were located near
each other along Annapolis Boulevard, now MD Hwy.
175. They could often be seen sitting together, smoking
cigars and spending hours in the evenings exchanging
ideas about tanks and tank warfare. Both men published
papers in military journals outlining their ideas. Together
they developed the tactics, techniques and procedures
that foreshadowed the future of tank warfare.
In addition to tank tactics, the men engaged in an
intensive study program to prepare themselves for
the day when they would be students at the Command
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