Subject: Division MPs
Date: July 30, 2000
From:
Gordon Billheimer
This is a combination war and reunion story
regarding the 8th MPs and the FBI. Our MP outfit had only 80 men in
the USA. Our highest ranking non com was James Frank Polattie who had been
a graduate of the University of South Carolina and a state trooper. He was a
Tech Sergeant. Frank was selected to go to Infantry OCS. He flunked
out and was sent to England as an infantry replacement.
He said he knew he was going to be sent
across the Channel as a squad sergeant. He felt he knew nothing about
infantry tactics and was sure to be killed. One day while patrolling in
England he saw a peep with the 8th Armored Div Insignia. He turned his
vehicle around and flagged the peep down. He ascertained that they
were an advance party of MPs. He asked if the Provost Marshall was Major
Burger. He received the correct answer and contacted Burger and begged to
be taken into the MPs. We did.
In 1950 I became an FBI Special Agent and
was sent to Indianapolis as my first office assignment. I was thumbing
through an index box that Agents used to locate places to stay, etc. I
noticed a place recommended by Frank Polattie. I knew it had to be the
same guy. Unfortunately he had just been transferred so I never
heard from him again.
Years later he came to the 8th Armored
Reunion in Washington and we renewed our acquaintance.(I was a Private and a
Tech Sergeant was far above me, so we were not really friends while in the
army.) He was a career Agent and had retired to Jackson, S.C., his
original home. I visited him there and at various reunions.
Now we are friends. I had left the FBI after three years and returned to my
roots in
West Virginia.
Frank had an exciting career as an Agent
including shootouts with fugitives. Once he was with a new agent driving
an FBI car. He was trying to locate a fugitive. The FBI car stopped
at a traffic light. Frank looked to his left and saw in the car
beside him the fugitive he was trying to arrest. They cut across
in front of the guy and stopped the car. Arrested him.
Gordon Billheimer
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