Provost Marshal General School
(Military Police)
MPs at what is today the Harker Road entrance to the fort. Circa 1943-1945. Photo credit unknown.
From June to December of 1942, Fort Oglethorpe was the site of a military police school known as the Provost Marshal General School (PMG). The PMG School occupied the South Post on the Chickamauga Battlefield. Although it was short-lived, this small chapter of Fort Oglethorpe history contributed to the global picture of World War 2.
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US Army Military Police (MP) served vital roles at home and around the world during World War 2. Such duties included the internment of nearly half a million prisoners of war; the training of about 200,000 MP personnel; the apprehension of absentees, deserters, and escaped military prisoners; the investigation of crime within the Army; training personnel for military government duties (occupation army); and supervising the War Department's internal security programs to protect the production of war material (Office of the Provost Marshal General, World War II, a brief history, edited by Warren D. Chandler, January 1946).
Colonel Hobart B. Brown Arrives
Colonel Hobart Blauvelt Brown was the commandant of the Provost Marshal General School in Fort Myer, VA, when the Army relocated the school to Fort Oglethorpe. Col. Brown is important to Fort Oglethorpe not only because of the military police chapter, but also because he would later be the Commandant of the Third Women's Army Corps Training Center at Fort Oglethorpe.
Brown's military experience began in 1909 when he volunteered for the New Jersey cavalry militia at the rank of private. In 1916, at the rank of Captain, the NJ "Essex Troop" was sent to assist with the Mexican border issue. While there he was promoted to the rank of Major and commanded the 1st Squadron. In May of 1917, he married Mary Elizabeth James in New Jersey. In preparation for World War 1, the New Jersey troops moved to Camp McClellan, AL, where from September 1917 to April 1918, Brown oversaw the reorganization of the cavalry squadron into the 104th Military Police Battalion. During this time, he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and became Provost Marshal. While still at Camp McClellan, he was reassigned to the 116th Infantry and shipped with this unit to France when America entered World War One. Upon arrival, Brown was given command of the 114th Infantry, which was composed of New Jersey National Guard troops that had been formed at Camp McLellan. He led this unit during the bloody Meuse-Argonne campaign. After the Armistice in November 1918, he was reassigned as Deputy Provost Marshall General of American Expeditionary Force in France and served in this capacity until February 1919. His wartime service was recognized with the Distinguished Service Medal (DSM). After the war, Brown worked as a treasurer in the insurance business but continued to serve in the New Jersey reserves between the two World Wars.
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According to his St. Petersburg (FL) obituary, he was recalled to active duty in 1939, when he was tasked with revising the Manual for Military Police and establishing a series of schools for MP training. By 1941, as a result of increased mechanization of the Army and a rapidly growing defense industry, local police forces around the country were strained with both manufacturing security and traffic control. Large-scale unit maneuvers were clogging local towns with training exercises. The War Department was also preparing for enemy aliens and prisoners of war. These were a few of the reasons that created the need for expanding and professionalizing the US Army Military Police. By December of 1941, Brown was the commandant of the newly established Provost Marshal Military Police School at the Arlington Cantonment, attached to Fort Myer, VA (which later became part of Arlington Cemetery).
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In early June 1942, six months after the attack at Pearl Harbor, the Army moved the Provost Marshal General School to Fort Oglethorpe. Col. Hobart B. Brown would be the school's Commandant, which was like the school principal. Col. Archer L. Lerch would be the school's Commanding Officer, which was more like the school district superintendent. The Post Commander of Fort Oglethorpe at the time was Col. Duncan Richart, and while the school would be under his command, its day-to-day operations would be left to Lerch and Brown.
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In early December 1942, The Army transferred the PMG School again to Fort Custer, MI. Col. Brown was transferred with the unit but before December was out, he would be transferred back to Fort Oglethorpe to assume the duties as Commandant of the newly formed Third Women's Army Corps Training Center. Col. Hobart B. Brown is a significant figure in the history of Fort Oglethorpe.
Col. Hobart B. Brown at Fort Oglethorpe during the WAC era. Photo credit: 116th Infantry Regiment Roll of Honor website.
Origins of Hand-to-Hand Combat Training
The organized and intentional training of hand-to-hand combat in the US military seems to have some roots in the Provost Marshal General School. This author first found reference to this in the Chattanooga Daily Times (June 12, 1942), but later discovered the photographic sequence shown below printed 3 months earlier in the Washington Daily News (March 4, 1942), while the PMG School was still at Fort Myer, VA. It is not the intent of this webpage to write the history of hand-to-hand combat training, but rather to highlight the man who brought this combat skill to the training school.
Leading up to the war, Anthony (Tony) Flores had been the Physical Director of the Castle Heights Military Academy in Lebanon, TN. He reportedly had a history of studying Judo/Jiu-Jitsu since the age of 14, beginning in Nicaragua and continuing in Brooklyn, NY. The caption above claims he was a former "national jiudo champ," although there is little publicity about this claim. Eventually, he was commissioned into the US Army and ended up at Fort Myer, VA, as an instructor in the PMG School.
The need for military police to be able to subdue a threat using bare hands was a real prospect. In World War 1, there was no unarmed defense training, rather soldiers were taught the bayonet. World War 2 saw the need for simple and lethal techniques that could easily be standardized and taught to rapidly expanding forces. The development of hand-to-hand combat was known as "combatives." Lt. Flores' presence as the chief combatives instructor at Fort Oglethorpe offers us the opportunity to learn more about this military advancement that gave the Allies an advantage over their opponents and ensured success on numerous battlefields and wartime secret operations.
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The US Army combatives techniques were largely influenced by British Commando methods. Bringing the instruction to American soldiers were two British military police officers who had served in Shanghai, China, during the interwar years, William E. Fairbairn and Eric A. Sykes. Balancing the complexity of martial arts instruction with the need to learn a few critical skills quickly, Fairbairn created his own fighting system called "Defendu." A student of Fairbairn's was Colonel Rex Applegate, who became the combatives instructor at the Army's training program for secret missions. Applegate was purportedly a friend of John Wayne and is credited with teaching him how to shoot and also was a technical advisor on the movie set The Alamo. In 1943, Applegate wrote a book called Kill or Get Killed, which was adopted by the US Marine Corps. The origins and influence of combatives beginning with Fairbairn, Sykes, Applegate, and Flores still persist today in military police, civilian police, and soldier training around the world.
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Lt. Anthony Flores has been credited with being involved in the production of the US Army's first manual on hand-to-hand combat titled Field Manual 21-150, Unarmed Defense for the American Soldier, published June 30, 1942. The War Department does not credit individual authors on any of their military publications, but Flores is considered to be in most of the photographs, appearing as the shorter of the two men. When the pictures in FM 21-150 are compared to the newspaper photo sequence above, in which Flores is the man on the left in the first three photos, the resemblance is similar.
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In 2021, Roberrt H. Sabet published a book about Lt. Flores, his influence on US Army hand-to-hand combat training, and the evolution of combatives.
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Chattanooga Daily Times, June 12, 1942. According to this article, Lt. Flores and his staff of 11 men were instructing the military police who were stationed at Fort Oglethorpe, while waiting for the regular PMG School trainees who had not yet arrived. This training occurred in the post gymnasium, which can still be seen today and is an entertainment venue. It is not known if the combatives training for the PMG School was also conducted in the post gymnasium or if it was held at the South Post where the PMG School was located.
Hand-to-hand combat was not the only training the military police received. The below photograph covered the trainee's introduction to the shotgun. Undoubtedly, some of the men had shotguns back home while others may have never fired one in their lives. Where was the firing range? The Catoosa Firing Range, now known as the Volunteer Training Site of the Tennessee National Guard located immediately west of Ringgold, GA, was built in 1905-06, as the firing ranges for Fort Oglethorpe. This is about 14 miles from the post. In later years, the Army wanted some ranges that were much closer to the post, so some land was designated as firing ranges on the northeast end of the post, where today a massive electrical substation is situated between Highway 2 and Diane Lane. This picture was taken probably at one of these two firing range locations but most likely at the range on post.
Chattanooga Daily Times, July 10, 1942.
Life at the Military Police School
One recurring theme throughout this website is Fort Oglethorpe's social, economic, and military connection to Chattanooga. Some soldiers lived in the barracks and visited Chattanooga. Some soldiers rented houses and apartments in and around Chattanooga and took public or private transportation to and from the post, for example, the electric trolleys. Entertainment was vitally important for morale, and Chattanooga was an ample playground for the troops. The training cadre (instructors) and trainees at the PMG School primarily lived and trained at the South Post, located in the northwest quadrant of the Chickamauga Battlefield. The concrete ruins of this cantonment can still be seen today among the forest and trails of the battlefield. In this section, we present a few glimpses into what life at the post was like while preparing for combat in World War 2.
Here the soldiers are appealing to Chattanoogans to donate floor lamps and a radio to furnish their recreation hall. There were about ten buildings on the South Post designated as "recreation." This hall had two pool tables and a magazine reading area. If you had been a Chattanooga resident at this time, would you have donated items to the post?
Chattanooga Daily Times, June 24, 1942.
Here is a typical department store ad in the Chattanooga Daily Times targeting the PMG School. This illustrates the economic ties Chattanooga business owners had with Fort Oglethorpe. This economic relationship had its origins forty-four years earlier in the Spanish-American War when the Army set up Camp Thomas on the Chickamauga Battlefield. Chattanoogans discovered how profitable it was to have a military base nearby, which directly led to the Army building Fort Oglethorpe in 1904. Koblenz was two blocks away from the original Miller Brothers department store. Competition for soldiers' dollars was stiff. Note the support for buying war bonds in the ad.
Chattanooga Daily Times, July 17, 1942.
Many troops stationed at Fort Oglethorpe and related camps chose to live in and around Chattanooga instead of living in the barracks on the post, especially officers who were paid more, and married soldiers who wanted to move their spouses and children close by. As the numbers of soldiers stationed at the fort swelled in response to the war, Chattanooga experienced a housing shortage.
This article highlights short-term rental shortages, which makes sense because the PMG School programs were about one month long. The school's trainees were not the only soldiers looking for residence. Let us not forget the PMG School was about 2,000 trainees, and on top of that, other units stationed at the fort at the same time (in various spans of time) were the post hospital staff and other permanent party troops, the ordinance company, the 65th Medical Regiment, and the 3rd Cavalry Regiment. All of these together put a strain on the Chattanooga housing supply.
Chattanooga Daily Times, July 5, 1942.
We forget sometimes among all the fascinating historical facts and events that the Fort Oglethorpe experience is about real people. The soldiers that came to the post came from big cities and small towns from all over the country. Just one example of putting a local face on the PMG School is Sam Polk Raulston (1896-1973).
Anyone from the Sequatchie Valley region that neighbors Chattanooga knows the Raulston family name. Sam was a well-known Marion County lawyer who left his law practice to join the war effort. He had served in World War 1 with the Marines on the battlefields in Europe. Raulston returned to service for this war in the Army, attending the "refresher course" at the South Post. Sam eventually returned home and resumed his practice of law. It is heroes like Sam that make up the history of Fort Oglethorpe.
Chattanooga Daily Times, July 12, 1942.
Chattanooga Daily Times, August 5, 1942.
Small ads announcing weekly events like this commonly ran in the Chattanooga Daily Times. This ad highlights several social aspects of life at the post. The wives of the officers at the PMG School held an all-day knitting event to support the Red Cross. The Red Cross would distribute sweaters and other knitted items to the troops.
Marriages frequently occurred at Fort Oglethorpe, and PMG School trainees were no exception. Typically, the wedding happened at the post chapel, a building that still stands today as a Presbyterian church at the Southwest corner of the intersection of Harker Road and the Lafayette Road. Often the soldiers of the fort married local women from the Chattanooga area, but this article describes soldiers marrying their girlfriends from back home who traveled to Chattanooga for the wedding. The couple mentioned took up residence on John Ross Road, which is a little over 3 miles from the post. Lt. Carlton had a couple of options to get to work at the post. Most likely he caught a bus, probably at the intersection of South Crest Road and the Lafayette Road. Beginning during World War 1, there was an electric trolley stop at this intersection, but by WW2 the bus was rapidly replacing the trolley. Lt. Carlton may also have had his own automobile, or he could have walked or carpooled with another officer.
Chattanooga Daily Times, July 12, 1942.
On the evening October 1, 1942, Col. Lerch, Commanding Officer of the PMG School and twenty-five faculty members of the school, visited the Chattanooga Police Department (CPD) for an inspection/tour. The CPD Chief of Police at the time was Homer Edmonson and Assistant Chief was Roy Hyatt. The PMG group took a tour of the police headquarters where they received a demonstration of the two-way radios in the squad cars, examined the riot guns in the armory, received a talk on fingerprint work from homicide detective E. E. Smith, and took a two-hour tour of the city in the squad cars. No doubt, the exchange of information was beneficial to both organizations and strengthened relationships between the fort and the city.
Chattanooga Daily Times, October 1, 1942.
Shout out to the Tennessee State Guard (TNSG), of whom this author is a member. In the last two weeks of October 1942, members of the TNSG were given a condensed course at the PMG School. They covered topics such as riot control, handling weapons, and civilian defense of war production facilities (internal security division). During their residency. the governor of Tennessee, Prentice Cooper, a veteran of World War 1, toured and inspected the school and his guard troops. Cooper is shown at the left learning about one of the Army's new machine guns. The governor announced that the TNSG troops would be the first state guard units in the country to be paid for their training time. Shown below, the governor issues a pay warrant to Col. Hunter McDonald, Jr., of Nashville, commanding officer of the TNSG troops engaged in training at the PMG School, accompanied by Maj. Gen. Thomas A. Frazier, adjutant-general for the Tennessee Military Department.
Chattanooga Daily Times, October 29, 1942.
Chattanooga Daily Times, October 15, 1942.
Chattanooga Daily Times, October 29, 1942.
Tragedy and Fortune Strike Chattanooga
Chattanooga Daily Times, November 18, 1942.
Not even six months after Col. Hobart Brown relocated the PMG School from the Arlington Cantonment in Virginia to the South Post of Fort Oglethorpe on the Chickamauga Battlefield, the Army announced on November 18 that the PMG School and its nearly 2,000 instructors and students would be relocated to Camp Custer, Michigan. The entire military police training program during WW2 would be consolidated there. This was an economic blow to the city. Chattanoogan merchants, residents, and the media had just begun to warm up to the benefits that the school brought to the area, and the troops had grown to like the fort and the city as a duty station. By the end of November, the school was gone, with Col. Brown once again overseeing its relocation.
The news hit the Chattanooga Chamber of Commerce hard. In response, the chamber launched plans for a lobbying committee to immediately visit Washington, DC, and ask that a suitable substitute make use of the fort's facilities. The main goal was to prevent the government from turning it into a prison camp like they did in World War 1, when Fort Oglethorpe was the largest enemy alien internment camp in the United States. Quite simply, prisoners do not spend money in the city. Indeed, there was a desperateness about the city's efforts to fill the void of the PMG School. The lobbying committee was to leave on December 6 but announced that they would postpone their trip due to "developments in Washington."
Turns out the "developments" would be an economic bonanza four times larger than the PMG School had been! A few weeks later, on Christmas Day 1942, the announcement was made that Fort Oglethorpe would become the Third Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) Training Center. This was the best Christmas present Chattanooga could have received that year! A few days earlier at Camp Custer, MI, a farewell steak dinner was held on December 20 for Col. Brown, who was ordered to return to Fort Oglethorpe where he would command the new training center. The first official opening day of the WAAC training center was set for February 1, 1943.
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The Provost Marshal General School was a short but vibrant and educational chapter in Fort Oglethorpe history lasting from June-November 1942. In the larger picture of the war, November 1942 saw the Allied Invasion of North Africa (Operation Torch), which marked the shift from a one-front to a two-front war- the Pacific Theater against the Japanese and the African-European Theater against the German Nazis and Italian Fascists. The men and women trained at Fort Oglethorpe would directly contribute to the victories in both theaters.