“Private National Simmons is the assistant driver of an M-4 Tank.”
Original caption: “Private National Simmons is the assistant driver of an M-4 Tank.” Private Simmons didn’t serve in just any tank battalion; he served in the 761st Tank Battalion, also known as the “Black Panthers”. The 761st Tank Battalion was one of the three Black American tank battalions during the Second World War. The 761st Tank Battalion was activated on April 1, 1942, at Camp Claiborne, Louisiana and trained with light M5 Stuart Tanks and the M4 Sherman tanks. After completing their training, the battalion was used as school troops at Camp Hood, where they were used as adversaries for the white tank destroyer battalions in training. In October 1944 the battalion arrived in France. In November 1944 it entered combat in Belgium. The battalion continued to fight and fought furthermore in the Netherlands, Germany, France, and Luxembourg, until it found itself in Austria at the end of the war in May 1945. The men of the 761st Tank Battalion engaged in the struggle for racial