The Tank School and Tank Corps
Fort George G. Meade
When Great Britain introduced tank warfare to the battlefields of World War I, the face of battle changed forever. By providing support to infantry attacks, the usefulness of tanks was proven. For this reason, on January 26, 1918, Brigadier General Samuel Rockenbach was named commander of the newly formed U.S. Tank Corps.
General Rockenbach remained with the Tank Corps when it returned from Europe and took up residence at the old Franklin Cantonment at Camp Meade as commander of the Tank Corps and the new created Tank School. By July 1919, 154 officers and 2,508 enlisted men were training here.
Unfortunately, due to the erroneous belief that tanks could never play more than a support role to infantry, the National Defense Act of 1920 abolished the Tank Corps. However, the Tank School remained at Camp Meade, still under the command of BG Rockenbach. Both General Of The Army (then Major) Dwight D. Eisenhower and General (then Major) George S. Patton, Jr., served on BG Rockenbach's staff. Despite the pleas of the advocates of tank warfare, the Chief of Infantry and other high-ranking Army officials remained skeptical. In 1932, this lack of support resulted in the closing of the Tank School and the transfer of a few remaining functions to the Infantry School at Fort Benning, GA. So little emphasis was placed on armored warfare that the Army's tank inventory was warehoused at Camp Meade.
The U.S. Army's experiment with tanks, begun in battle and developed at Camp Meade, was all but over. In a few years American interest in tanks would be revived after German Blitzkrieg's again demonstrated the effectiveness of tanks.
This plaque erected in 1996 by the Fort Meade Museum.
Marker is at the intersection of Chamberlin Avenue and 4th Street, on the right when traveling south on Chamberlin Avenue.
Courtesy hmdb.org
