 Amphibious operation, a combined attack in which every man is assigned a time and place to do his part. What is the assignment of the military policeman? This is a simulated attack in amphibious maneuvers. Let's start at the final briefing as your troop ship nears the beach. First, using the map issued to you on shipboard, you locate your post of duty. You may be either with a division military police who go ashore behind the first assault waves and follow them inland, or with the amphibious support brigade military police who service the beach area after it has been cleared of the enemy. And now you division MPs lead off. Each of the infantry assault regiments is accompanied by a group of division military police. Your job is to get ashore and follow the infantry assault waves. The purpose of the division military police is to bring order out of the confusion the assault waves leave in their wake. Now you head inland to take the post assigned to you. As the division assault troops move up, you division MPs stick with them. You'll funnel stragglers and prisoners of war back to the beach collecting points and control the traffic of personnel and equipment through beach exits. The amphibious support brigade starts ashore as soon as the beach is cleared of enemy troops. The support brigade will direct transport and guard supplies. Now in our mock attack, it's the turn of the support brigade to hit the beach. Each of you knows his job and starts for it. You control traffic. You direct stragglers to the collecting point. You guard prisoners of war under orders of the shore commander both before and after enclosures have been built to hold them. And supplies. They come in fast and jam up the flow of personnel and equipment unless piled in supply dumps off the paths of traffic to prevent bottlenecks in this critical area. For the enemy does all he can to make it tough for you. He may on occasion have the aid of storms and seas to turn your efforts into rescue work and salvage from wind and water. Directional and information signs are issued you in the embarkation area. You check the illuminated blackout signs. You'll be kept informed of battle and road conditions so you can direct traffic to the safest and best routes. If you're assigned to a motor patrol, you report vehicles disabled on the road to the nearest ordinance wrecker crew. And the traffic block is removed from the roadway. Members of the amphibious support brigade help units disembark and keep them moving, directing them to the exit roads and rendezvous points. Those white-taped lines indicate a safe thoroughfare through a minefield. You see that vehicles and personnel keep within those limits. A helicopter may be spotting traffic tie-ups and reporting them to your command post. When a wreck blocks traffic, stalled vehicles will be diverted to an alternate road, while patrols of the support brigade and a wrecker crew will be dispatched to clear away the obstruction. Keeping the beach exits clear doesn't only mean directing traffic. A driver may decide to de-waterproof his vehicle right now and you direct him to get going to the unit de-waterproofing area. You'll have to slow down the speeders and speed up the slow ones. When you set up an information post, a careful study of your map gives you the facts on unit locations, routes of advance, military police installations, locations of enemy positions. But conditions change swiftly, so you keep your facts up to date through patrols and other authorized sources. At a de-waterproofing area, you direct the parking and spacing of vehicles as they report in. In an assembly area, you may be part of an escort for a priority, tank, or heavy equipment column, perhaps area where division military police will take over. When on a roving patrol covering the beach, pick up stragglers and take them to the straggler collecting points to be returned to their units. In enemy territory, there is no more important assignment than helping to maintain security of the command post. Poopers may have to be captured, contained, or destroyed. You'll hunt snipers, guerrillas. Prisoners of war, captured by the assaulting troops, are turned over to the division military police, who establish a temporary collecting point at an inland location with some natural cover and concealment. A group of the Amphibious Support Brigade military police, whose special function it is to guard prisoners of war, now hit the beach and establish prisoner of war enclosures in the beach area. Relieving the division MPs of their prisoners, the brigade military police conduct them back to the prepared beach enclosures. When enemy towns are smashed and fought over, the movement of civilian refugees must be controlled, and that becomes the job of the military police support brigade. Masquerading among the homeless and hungry are enemy guerrillas, and a mine detector helps you recognize them. The mine detector has encountered, on this innocent looking fellow, something made of metal. It's a pistol. You cooperate with the CIC in their interrogation of enemy personnel. Your aid to the CIC may win a battle behind the lines. The military police Amphibious Support Brigade operates these refugee collecting points. And lastly, you protect from pilfering and sabotage the vital store of supplies and property on which the army's forward drive is based. So as a military policeman, think over what this simulated Amphibious operation has taught you. Some of you division military police landed with the first waves and moved inland with the assault troops. In the Amphibious Support Brigade, you functioned on the beach and kept traffic moving up through the beach exits, returned stragglers to their units, made sure that traffic obstacles were removed, protected vehicles from landbines. You set up information posts, you guarded prisoners of war, helped capture enemy paratroopers, took care of enemy guerrillas, you controlled civilian refugees, and guarded the all-important supplies. You carried out all you had been taught and everything asked of you in the final briefing. This Amphibious operation needed your 24-hour support and got it.