The last of the U.S. Army’s main battle tanks stationed in Germany came ashore Wednesday at Joint Base Charleston.
The 22 Abrams tanks arrived aboard an American roll-on, roll-off cargo ship at the TC Dock on the base’s Weapons Station, according to Joint Base Charleston. The Army’s 841st Transportation Battalion received and offloaded the shipment, and contractors towed the tanks off the ship. The tanks will move on to their final destination on the West Coast, the battalion said.
The shipment ends the Army’s 69-year history of keeping its main battle tanks on German soil, according to the base.
The tanks were loaded March 18 at the 21st Theater Sustainment Command’s railhead in Kaiserslautern, Germany, and traveled to the port of Bremerhaven for the voyage across the Atlantic, the base said.
Their departure coincides with the deactivation of two of the Army’s heavy brigades in Germany, according to the base. One of them, the 170th Infantry Brigade in Baumholder, disbanded in 2012.
“We’re conducting business as usual with performing this operation,” said Capt. Joshua Turner, the 841st’s operations officer, according to the base. “It is an honor to be recognizing the closing of a chapter and having the 841st Transportation Battalion as part of it.”
Sgt. Maj. Marvin L. Bonner, the battalion’s sergeant major, called it an honor to receive the final shipment at the Charleston dock.
“As the military continues to downsize its forces and restructure, it is definitely the end of an era in Europe Command,” Bonner said.
American tanks landed in France on D-Day, June 6, 1944, and the first tanks of the 5th Armored Division pushed into Germany by September 1944, according to the base. A new wave of U.S. tanks arrived in Germany during the Korean War to help defend Western Europe against the Soviet threat, and tanks stayed in Germany through the following decades, ready to deploy for missions in the Middle East.
Wednesday’s offload closes that chapter at a South Carolina dock.
