How is a WWII Army unit's place of activation determined? (I'll explain....)

[752ndTank]

I'm hoping someone can help me better understand how a unit's official place of activation is determined. It sounds like a really dumb question, but I'm seeing two different locations listed for both the 752d and 756th Tank Battalions, depending upon which of several trusted sources I look at. I can argue a case for either location, but I'm sure the Army had a prescribed way of determining this and it seems odd that different locations would be reported. 

 

For the 752d, the place of activation is listed as Fort Knox in all the earlier wartime references (1941 Fort Lewis Sentinel, 1945 yearbook, and the official 1947 Historical Narrative). Knox is where the 752d's initial cadre and filler personnel were selected three days prior to activation. However, the more modern reference sources (Sawicki's 1983 "Tank Battalions of the US Army" and Stanton's 1991 "Order of Battle") list the 752d's place of activation as Ft. Lewis, which is where the men received their initial training as a unit. 

 

I see the same exact pattern for the 756th, which was a sister battalion to the 752d with the same dates and locations. The earlier sources referenced the 756th's activation at Knox, and the later sources cited the unit's initial training location at Fort Lewis. 

 

Based on the 752d and 756th, Sawicki and Stanton seem to be basing the place of activation on the training location. However, for another sister battalion (the 753d), they use the sourcing location (Benning) rather than the initial training location (Polk). Go figure. 

Can anyone shed some light on how the place of activation is officially determined by the Army, and whether that may have changed over the years? Does anyone have copies of the 1941 War Department orders that constituted and later activated these battalions? 

 

I know this is a tiny detail but it's one of the earliest and most basic facts in the 752d historical record and I really want to use the correct location in my research and reporting.

 

Many thanks in advance.