Last updated
13 June 2002

The U.S. Military Police Corps birthday is September 26, 1941

The traditions of our Military Police Corps date back to early American history. Established by Congressional Resolution as the "Provost Corps" in 1778, its primary mission through the Civil War was to apprehend deserters, marauders, drunkards, rioters and stragglers. The complexity of warfare during World War I required a Corps comprised of specially trained soldiers to handle massive numbers of prisoners of war and control movement in the zones of operation. In 1918, General John J. Pershing directed his provost marshal to organize a unit to investigate crimes committed against the Army in France called the Criminal Investigation Division or CID.

Officially recognized in September 1941 as an integral part of the armed forces, the Military Police Corps expanded its ranks in World War II to keep pace with war on a global scale. Military police moved traffic along the Burma Road, supported amphibious operations on Normandy beachheads and managed enemy prisoners of war from Italy to the South Pacific. The Corps was heralded for gallantry at Remagen, as a fighting force in numerous combat actions and as peacekeepers at war's end. In 1944, the Army again saw the need for a unit to investigate crime involving soldiers in Europe. The CID was established as a branch of the Provost Marshal General's Office and has continued investigative activity since.

During the Korean conflict, military police kept supply routes open and, afterwards, monitored the exchange of prisoners and patrolled the demilitarized zone. Military police, adapting to a different style of warfare in Vietnam, earned status as a combat support arm, partially as a result of combat success during the Tet Offensive. Operations in Grenada, Panama, the Persian Gulf, Northern Iraq, Africa, Haiti, Guantanamo Bay and currently in the Balkans demonstrate the vitality of the Corps in peacetime and in war.