The 748th Tank Battalion, Medium was activated on 20 August 1942 at Camp Rucker, Alabama. The Rhinos went to Fort Knox on 15 April 1943 for training and on 20 April 1943 were reorganized as a special battalion equipped with Canal Defense Light spotlights. They departed Fort Knox on 15 July 1943 for Camp Bouse, Arizona, were attached to the 9th Armored Tank Group on 30 August 1943, and arrived at Camp Bouse on 1 September 1943 as a Canal Defense Light unit. They landed at Glasgow, Scotland, on 6 April and then proceeded to South Wales. On June 6, 1944, D-Day, they landed in Normandy on Utah Beach under the command of General Bradley, who was in charge of the Third Army. Shortly after D-Day, General George S. Patton took over the Third Army, and after 23 October the 748th was reorganized as a standard tank battalion. The Rhinos moved to the front on 20 January 1945 near Butzdorf, Germany, attached to the 94th Infantry Division near the Siegfried Line to protect the area known as the Saat-Moselle Triangle. On 16 March they moved to the Saarlautern area to support 65th Infantry Division operations to break through the Siegfried Line defenses. Attached to the 5th Infantry Division near Bad Kreuznach, Germany, they crossed the Rhine on 23 March 1945 near Oppenheim just south of the Rhine bend at Mainz and became the first Third Army tanks to fight on the east bank of the river. From 23 to 30 March, elements of the battalion were attached to three corps, the VIII, XII, and XX, and five divisions, the 5th, 26th, 80th, 87th, and 89th. Advancing with the 65th Infantry Division to the Danube at Gundelhausen, the 748th entered Regensburg on 27 April. On 1 May, along with the 261st Regiment, it took Passau and crossed the Inn River into Austria on 4 May. The battalion gathered at the small community of Haag outside Linz, Austria, and on 5 May the 748th ended the war.