A requirement of 1,200 was decided, later increased to 4,400, and some sample Renault tanks, plans, and various parts were sent to the US for study. The US Army ordered approximately 4,440 M1917s between 19, receiving about 950 before cancelling the contract. The M1917 was the USA's first mass-produced tank, a license-built near-copy of the French Renault FT. Eisenhower became the #3 leader of the new tank corps and rose to temporary ( Bvt.) Lieutenant Colonel in the National Army and trained tank crews at "Camp Colt"–his first command–on the grounds of "Pickett's Charge" on the Gettysburg, Pennsylvania Civil War battle site. He had performed so well as an administrator that, upon his return to Camp Meade, he was told he would be staying in the United States, where his talent for logistics would be put to good use in establishing the army's primary tank training center at Camp Colt in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The battalion shipped out on the night of March 26, but Eisenhower did not go with it.
In mid-March the 1st Battalion, Heavy Tank Service (as it was then known) was ordered to prepare for movement overseas, and Eisenhower went to New York with the advance party to work out the details of embarkation and shipment with port authorities. Some heavy tanks would also be supplied by Great Britain.Ĭaptain Dwight Eisenhower, later General Dwight Eisenhower of World War II fame, had gone to Camp Meade, Maryland, in February 1918 with the 65th Engineer Regiment, which had been activated to provide the organizational basis for the creation of the army's first heavy tank battalion.
The Inter-Allied Tank Commission decided that, because of the wartime demands on French industry, the quickest way to supply the American forces with sufficient armour was to manufacture the Renault FT light tank in the USA. It was, though, expected that sizeable quantities of tanks would not be available until April 1918. A joint Anglo-American programme was set up to develop a new type of heavy tank similar to those then in use by the British. John Pershing, decided that both light and heavy tanks were essential for the conduct of the war and should be acquired as soon as possible. The following month, in the light of a report into British and French tank theories and operations, the American Expeditionary Forces' commander-in-chief, Gen. The USA entered the First World War on the side of the Entente Powers in April, 1917, without any tanks of her own.
Light tanks with a crew of only two, these were mass-produced during World War I. Renault FT tanks being operated by the US Army in France.
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