1st Battalion, 37th Armor Regiment
"Bandits"

The mission of the 1st Battalion, 37th Armored Regiment is to, on order, rapidly deploy via air, ground or sea to a designated area to conduct combat operations. It would then, on order, conduct operations in support of regional contingencies.

The 1st Battalion, 37th Armor Regiment was first constituted on 13 January 1941 in the Regular Army as Company A, 7th Armored Regiment, an element of the 4th Armored Division. It was activated on 15 April 1941 at Pine Camp, New York and redesignated on 8 May 1941 as Company A, 37th Armored Regiment. The unit was reorganized and redesignated on 10 September 1943 as Company A, 37th Tank Battalion.

On 13 September 1944, the M4 tanks of the 37th Tank Battalion knifed across the Moselle River as part of General George S. Patton's continued thrust through France. The 37th Tank Battalion, along with Company A, was assigned to the 4th Armored Division, part of Patton's Third US Army. On 14 September 1944 overran the rear Command Post of the 15th Panzer Grenadier Division at Arracourt and, in Valhey, caught the same division's forward echelon Command Post before it could displace rearward. It was at Valhey that Sergeant Joe Sadowski of Company A won his Medal of Honor. This Non-Commissioned Officer from Perth Amboy, New Jersey was commander of the second tank column as the 37th rolled into the French town. The lead had swung north around a corner as Sadowski's M4 clattered into the village square, where a German armor-piercing round found its mark and set the Sherman afire against the town's water trough. Sadowski had his crew dismount and got them to shelter behind a building after running a gauntlet of machine gun and small arms fire in the square. When noses were counted the bow gunner was found to be missing. A glance at the burning tank showed the gunner's hatch still closed tight. The history of the 4th Armored Division states succinctly: "The Sergeant ran back to his tank, clambered up the smoking front slope plate and tried to pry open the gunner's hatch with his bare hands. He stood on the smoking tank and strained at the hatch until he had been hit so many times he could no longer stand. He slid from his medium and died in the mud beside its tracks. His father and mother were given his posthumous Medal of Honor."

The unit was converted and redesignated on 1 May 1946 as Troop A, 37th Constabulary Squadron, an element of the 3rd Constabulary Regiment. It was inactivated on 20 September 1947 in Germany, and relieved from assignment to the 3rd Constabulary Regiment.

It was again converted and redesignated on 11 December 1951 as Company A, 37th Tank Battalion, with 37th Tank Battalion assigned on 25 February 1953 to the 4th Armored Division. The unit was activated 15 June 1954 at Fort Hood, Texas. The unit was reorganized and redesignated on 1 April 1957 as Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 1st Medium Tank Battalion, 37th Armor, an element of the 4th Armored Division, with its organic elements concurrently constituted and activated.

The Battalion was reorganized and redesignated on 12 August 1963 as the 1st Battalion, 37th Armor. It was relieved on 10 May 1971 from assignment to the 4th Armored Division and assigned to the 1st Armored Division.

The Battalion was relieved on 17 January 1992 from assignment to the 1st Armored Division and assigned to the 3rd Infantry Division. It was inactivated on 15 February 1996 in Germany and relieved from assignment to the 3rd Infantry Division.

On 17 February 1997, the Battalion was assigned to the 1st Armored Division and activated in Germany.

In 2007, as part of a continuing drawdown of US forces in Europe, the 1st Armored Division began both transformation to the US Army's modular force structure and redeployment of some of its brigades to the United States. Units redeploying from Iraq at that time would be redeployed to the Unitd States. 1st Battalion, 37th Armor was subsequently relocated with the rest of 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division to Fort Bliss Texas.