World War I marked a significant step in the military police's journey toward permanent branch status within the Army. Once again the Army organized units both at the War Department level and in the field to carry out military police duties. Following America's entry into the war in 1917, the War Department appointed Maj. Enoch H. Crowder provost marshal general of the Army. Again the paramount mission of this official and the units placed under his command was to administer a selective service law. In July 1917 General John J. Pershing appointed Lt. Col. Hanson E. Ely as provost marshal general of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) to advise him "on military police and provost marshal matters." And finally, in May 1918, the War Department created yet another military police organization on the Army staff, the Criminal Investigation Division (CID).
Charged with investigating criminal wrongdoing within the service, the CID was organized along the lines of a detective squad similar to those found in any large city police department of the era. Initially the CID consisted of eight companies, each with 5 officers and 100 enlisted men. Its members were selected by the provost marshals in the various army areas from among those soldiers with civilian experience as police detectives, lawyers, and journalists. Its full organizational structure was not established until the last weeks of the war. During 1918 the CID was involved in some 4,500 cases pertaining to the investigation of black market activities, fraudulent passes sold in troop areas, worthless check-cashing operations, mail theft, and theft and illegal sale of government supplies.[1]
Anticipating the need for military police in the AEF, the War Department approved a divisional table of organization in May 1917 that included authorization of a headquarters and two military police companies, a total of 316 officers and men in each division. Based on this guidance, the AEF organized two military police companies in the 1st Division in July, marking the first use of an organization officially called military police. General Pershing's plan called for placing these companies in the divisional train. Divisional returns of 4 September 1917 listed 95 men in the 1st Division's train headquarters and two military police companies with a strength of 150 and 152 officers and men respectively.[2] To supplement the direct support units, a general support military police regiment, the First Army Headquarters Regiment, was formed by converting a French-speaking New Hampshire National Guard infantry organization and filling it out with men with civilian experience as detectives.
During the war the AEF organized military police units in sixty-one separate divisions, but in July 1918 Pershing also received permission to organize military police units in each corps and army with additional separate companies posted to the various sections of the Service of Supply. the Training Depot, and "to tactical units as may be necessary."[3] Ironically, the increase in the number of military police companies resulted in a weakening in the strength of all military police companies in the AEF, because Pershing was forced to cut down on the size and number of divisional military police units in order to provide trained manpower for the new units.[4] In the months following the end of hostilities, the AEF could count military police battalions
- ↑ Memo, PMG, AEF, for Chief of Staff, AEF, 30 Apr 19, reprinted in United States Army in the World War, 1917–1919, 17 vols. (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1942), 15: 313–20. These responsibilities are now carried out under the supervision of the provost marshal general by the Criminal Investigation Command. For a general enumeration of responsibilities, see The Army Almanac (Harrisburg, Pa.: Stackpole Co., 1959), p. 29.
- ↑ "Report on Organization," 10 Jul 16, reprinted in United States Army in the World War, 1: 97 and 118ff. See also TOs (Tables of Organization) 38 to 41, 3 May 17, 8 Aug 17, and 11 Nov 18, reprinted in The Genesis of the American First Army (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1938).
- ↑ New Hampshire Returns, World War I National Guard Induction Records, copy in OHB, CMH. AEF GO 111, 8 Jul 1918. See also TOs, ser. B, Corps Troops, 1 Nov 18, in United States Army in the World War, 1: 331.
- ↑ A.E.F. GO 200, 9 Nov 18.
