Post War Service
May the 7th found the battalion, minus Company B, at Leutasch and Ober Leutasch, Austria. Company B was in Moserne and later moved to Telfs. Here the battalion was able to rest. On 12 May, General McAuliffe pinned Silver Stars on Captain Walter S. Smith, 1st Lt. Serreo S. Nelson and Lt Christopher J. Sturkey, while his staff pinned the ribbons of the Distinguished Unit Citation on members of the 3rd Platoon of Company C. Officers and men had passes and furloughs until early July when the unit was alerted to move. On the 10th they were ordered to move to Marseilles, France. Here it was found the battalion was to be broken up and the men sent to service units, but after General McAuliffe and others had intervened, the orders were changed and the battalion awaited orders to ship to the Pacific or be assigned to occupation duties in Europe. But, the war in the Pacific ended too and on 10 September, 1945, the battalion received orders to return to Germany. On the 25th, the battalion CP was established at Hofheim with the companies occupying nearby towns.
The battalion was reactivated as a Negro General Reserve Unit at Camp Hood, Texas, on 30 June, 1946, pursuant to General Orders No. 20, Headquarters, 2nd Armored Division dated 27 June, 1946. Activated under the command of Lt. Col. Delmer P. Anderson, the 614th received its first shipment of fillers on 1 July from the Overseas Replacement Depot, Camp Kilmer, New Jersey, all of whom were regular Army re-enlistees originally intended for European duty. Additional personnel arrived during July and August. On August 19, Lt. Col. Henry W. Allerd assumed command, relieving Lt. Col. Anderson. A 13 week individual training program was started the 3rd week of July. On 3 September, the battalion received two M18 Hellcat tank destroyers to be used for preliminary training. Effective 1 November, 1946, per General Orders No. 43, Headquarters, Second Armored Division, dated 19 October, 1946, the 614th Tank Destroyer Battalion was deactivated.
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“Fear death?—to feel the fog in my throat,
The mist in my face,
When the snows begin, and the blasts denote
I am nearing the place,
The power of the night, the press of the storm,
The post of the foe;
Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form,
Yet the strong man must go:”
—Robert Browning (1812–1889)
“... the next war will be a war in which people not armies will suffer, and our boasted, hard-earned civilization will do us no good. Cannot the women rise to this great opportunity and work now, and not have the double horror, if another war comes, of losing their loved ones, and knowing that they lifted no finger when they might have worked hard?”
—Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962)
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)