Page:Robert K. Wright - Military Police - CMH Pub 60-9-1.pdf/25

 INTRODUCTION With the cessation of hostilities, the military police in the AEF were made extra busy by the hordes of American GIs who took unauthorized leave to see "Paree" and the other fabled sights of a Europe now at peace. At the time of the Armistice agreement, the strength of the new corps stood at 463 officers and 15,912 men, who were stationed throughout France and with those troops of the Third Army who would participate in the occupation of the Rhineland.

In an effort to preserve the new branch as the Army entered its usual postwar drawdown in strength and also to preserve and document the role played by military police during the war, General Bandholtz requested all division commanders to submit reports concerning military police activities in their areas. Most of these reports strongly endorsed the work of the corps, and subsequently Bandholtz proposed to the War Department that a permanent military police corps be retained in the Regular Army. Citing the inadequacies in assigning nonspecialists to such technically demanding duties, he stressed the obvious point that a permanent corps would ensure the existence of stable and efficient military police units in future emergencies.

Although Congress rejected the idea of a permanent corps, it did ratify the permanent organization of military police units in the Army in the National Defense Act of 1920. To save spaces in the Regular divisions, Congress combined the headquarters company and military police company. It also organized a Military Police Branch in the Officers' Reserve Corps. In the 1920s military police duties were once again performed by troops drawn from posts, camps, and stations and tactical units, usually on the basis of rosters drawn up by local commanders. Provost marshals existed in the reserve commands but never above the corps area level. Despite its organizational preservation in the severely reduced postwar Army, the military police function was again allowed to drift.

With the outbreak of war in Europe in 1939 the creation of a military police corps became almost a necessity. In conjunction with a rising national concern over possible subversion and the perceived need to control hostile aliens, the Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson appointed Maj. Gen. Allen W. Guillon, the adjutant general of the Army, as acting provost marshal on 31 July 1941. To meet the demands associated with an army mobilizing for war, the War Department also recognized that a centralized authority above the corps level was necessary. On 26 September 1941, the official birthday of the corps, the secretary of war established the Military Police Corps as a permanent branch of the Army.

The duties of the new branch were published the day the United States declared war. The military police became responsible for investigating all crimes and offenses committed by persons "subject to military law within the area under the control of the organization to which they are assigned or attached." The branch was also charged with fighting crime, enforcing all police regulations pertaining to their area, reporting violations of orders "given by them in the proper execution of their duties regardless of the grade or status of the offender," and preventing the commission of acts "which are subversive of discipline or that cast discredit in any way on the