I'm hoping you fine people might be able to help me out with some information. I'm trying to track down my grandfather's time through WWII. Unfortunately, he passed away before I was old enough to be able to get information from him. I know that he was with the 749th Tank Battalion, Company B, and was later attached to the 76th Infantry. He enlisted as a PFC and later in the war was a drill sergeant. In his tank were the following: Penner (Asst Driver), Lombardi (gunner), Denenny (commander), Dedrick (loader), and Myer (driver). I found in an article that in battle Lombardi wouldn't kill anybody, so Penner (my grandfather) was made gunner and Lombardi was made asst. driver. Myer later replaced Denenny, and Weaver was their replacement driver. During the war, he was at some point listed as MIA, along with his tank. Later showed back up. He was awarded a Bronze Star in April 1945 by the 76th Infantry. I also know he was in the Battle of the Bulge as well. Unfortunately that is about all the information that I have on him... Hopefully someone else in here is a 749th Tank Battalion history buff and can help me out. If anyone has any information related to the 749th Tank Battalion, I'd be interested to read about it. I know this might be a long shot, but I figured it was worth a shot.

The 749th Tank Battalion was a separate medium tank battalion.

In 1944, from Normandy through at least October, the 749th was attached to the 79th Infantry Division.  My father's company (Co. L, 3rd Battalion, 313th Infantry Regiment) was supported by a platoon of 749th Tank Battalion M4 Shermans when he was wounded during the 3rd Battalion's assault on the German strongpointed village outside Luneville (Foret de Parroy) France in October 1944.



These are tanks of the 749th in October 1944.

There is a two volume history of the 749th available on Amazon.  I haven't read it, but the title causes me some concern - "And Its Assigned Infantry Regiments".  Separate medium tank battalions did not get infantry regiments assigned to them, these tank battalions were assigned (as missions required) to various divisions and then the subordinate units of those tank battalions were (usually) further assigned out to various infantry regiments.

There is also a post-WW2 regimental history.

A brief history:

The 749th Tank Battalion was attached to the 70th, 71st, and 76th Infantry Divisions (among others) in the final 1945 campaign, as well as its long attachment to the 79th (July - Oct 1944).

That's an awesome picture! Sounds like the 749th was everywhere throughout the war.

PDF file of the 749th Tank Battalion's Jan - Apr 1945 after action report.  Starts with their attachment to the 44th Infantry Division south and west of the Saar River.

This is post-WW2 veteran map of the unit's combat itinerary (the red line).  Probably from the post-WW2 unit history.

Picture of Company B, 749th Tank Battalion (probably in CONUS) in the UK.



749th Tank Battalion tribute page by a family member of a veteran (ETA: the interview page links are broken but I was able to access the pages through Google  on an image search.  There's also an association page on Facebook.  Google is a great resource.

If you have names, also go to FindaGrave.  Sometimes it's packed with information you won't find elsewhere.