Pictures &  Mementos

Note:

The photographs in the various albums cover the entire period of our unit's history.  From the early days of 1948 with the formation of the EUCOM (European Command) Highway Patrol and the provisional HP detachments with patrolmen drawn from the various MP Companies and Battalions that were stationed throughout what was then the European Area of Command; they trace a history of Service, Prevention, and Enforcement that continued for a decade.  On September  20, 1951 the 62^nd Military Police Company was reorganized, redesignated as the 62^nd Military Police HIGHWAY PATROL Company, and allotted to the regular army.   That special mission continued until the unit was deactivated on 20 September 1958.

Some of the pictures are old time favorites, some depict the various duties related to this particular and unique assignment - one of the very best duties in the Army!  All bring back memories.  Many of these photos and items are treasured keepsakes and were submitted by various members of the Highway Patrol and/or their surviving family members.  Our historian, Edward "Smitty" Smith has possession of these original items and over the years he has been sharing various pictures and items with us through the various issues of The White Mice, or as we know it, Die Weisse Maus, our official newsletter.  Rising postal costs and the decrease in the amount of stories and materials that you, the members, have submitted to be included in the pages of those issues have led to fewer issues being printed and mailed each year.  Those of you that attend our reunions spend considerable time viewing the volumes of photo books full of pictures that "Smitty" brings  to those events. 

The few photos that I first obtained were all  included when I originally established our original HP web page.  Over the ensuing years I have obtained additional photos.   After loading three cd's, dvd's and several floppy disks plus a few individual pictures that some of you have kindly sent directly to me, it unfortunately turned out that there were many (very many) duplicate copies of the very same photos on almost every one of the various discs (and floppies).  While not obtaining quite as many new photos as I had originally hoped for, this new additional group has increased our existing on-line collection substantially.

As our ranks keep getting thinner every year, I have long felt that it became that much more important to show and tell the story of our unit's piece of history for all to see at any time.  To do that, I hope to eventually have all of our photos on-line where they can be shared by all that served, and by our surviving families, as well as those that may be interested in our story.  What is presently being displayed on this site may in reality be only a very small portion of the pictures that are in our archives and in the personal files of some of our surviving members.  I truly hope that you will enjoy what have been gathered and displayed and that they will bring back some fond memories.

 I have spent considerable time viewing, sorting, trying to identify them, and finally assembling them into a few categories, collections, or albums.  Far too many individuals in the photos are still unidentified.  I have the unfortunate distinction of being the last member assigned to duty with the Highway Patrol, and as such there are so many of our members that I never got to meet or know.  I have just once again completed reading through every page of each edition of  all of the back copies of  Die Weisse Maus looking for additional captions or information.   I have received much useful information from "Smitty" (as usual), and I am now requesting and pleading that if any of you can identify any of the unnamed individuals in any of the photos, -or- if you can add any information surrounding the event or activity, -or- if you can provide a date, time-line, or place (or anything else) please contact me so that I may update the information for all others to see, know, and share.   If you should have any pertinent photos, items, or clippings that would be suitable for publishing on this website please contact me.  I will always share everything sent to me with the historian.  Lets show interested parties who we were and what we once did.  Please contact me at: webmaster@62HP.org. 

One individual has advised me that their computer had taken an inordinate amount of time to load the original set of pictures on our web page.  As I have presently added almost twenty-fold of that original amount of pictures, and as I am somewhat hopefully optimistic that there will be a new and continuing supply of additional items to be uploaded, I consulted several knowledgeable colleagues about the best or alternative ways to make the photos available to all of our group, yet still be able to add later information as necessary, all the while keeping in mind that our host site has certain space limitations.  I found that numerous organizations including military, service, historical, veterans, and other groups such as ours had often utilized various outside sources such as flickr® to be the medium for handling their group photos.  

I  investigated that resource and numerous others, testing by trial and error, uploading the photos, testing the limits, especially the capacity limits available for free usage.  I also experimented by using the various (and often quite different) tools and resources that were associated with each of the programs.  Ideally, we would have the pictures hosted in the same place as the rest of our major web site, however, this just did not work out as we overwhelmed the free space that was available to us.  Unfortunately, the same thing happened after I had loaded, sorted, and captioned the first 100 photos on flickr®.   I wasted a great deal of precious time experimenting by trial and error with just about every resource that was suggested or investigated. 

During this interim, even more of our members have passed on without having had the opportunity to share the pictures or to share any of their knowledge or information about the pictures.  Thus, we lose important information that needs to be in public archives.  The primary factor has been to have a resource where all members could easily view the pictures with the least amount of effort while trying to do it for free or at least at a minimum cost. 

I now have some thirteen (13) separate albums loaded on yet another website Google® (which I hope will work for all of us).  I have spent months making a number of adjustments and corrections in these first albums.  They have been tested as thoroughly as I can at this point, using several faux or dummy accounts, as well as other sites available to me.  I have experienced only a few minor difficulties so far; however, over the many years that I have been teaching on-line I have found with my many on-line students, that we can never replicate their problems as they are always using too many different types of computers, software programs, servers, and internet access providers (always a major problem), and these often cause certain problems that the professor, webmaster, or IT technicians cannot replicate, find or fix.  It may well be that sometimes it is the individual's own computing techniques, skills (or lack thereof) that cause the problem.  I personally feel that there may truly be cyber gremlins lurking in cyber space just waiting to pounce as well.  I will keep my fingers crossed that all of you will have no problems viewing the photos. 

There were (at last count) 1211 photos available in the various albums.  Over 700 plus are more historical coming from those "old duty days" while others come from various reunions of our association.  Their are still many gaps that need filling in the reunions as well as in the many pictures of our members.  Several hundred photos have been identified by name and I feel that some of the existing troopers out there might be able to add captions to some of the other photos as well.  Unfortunately, I have only heard from a very few of you.  Either few are perusing the photos or no one cares.  As I am fast losing my vision, I really need your help if you can ID any person, place, or time frame. 

You may Click on an album to open it.  You can view the page as thumbnails, or as larger individual photos.  You may change thumbnail size (by clicking the slider bar in the upper right hand side of the page).  Clicking on the photo will open it in a larger image for easier viewing.  You can also use the forward or back button (top of photo) to view the photos when they are open in the larger size.  There is a slideshow button on the left hand top side for auto viewing. 

I have numbered every photo in each album so if/when you send me any information or a correction, please give me the number as well as the album name; i.e.  HP 2: Unknown - Individuals, Partners, and Small Groups - Unidentified, photo # u 5a.

I truly need for you to PLEASE let me know your feelings and/or experiences with the photo website or if you have problems in getting these pictures to load.   I tried many different things and programs before I settled on Google®.   I will continue to add to these albums as time permits, and with your assistance I hope to eventually have the majority of all of the photos properly identified and captioned.  I have already explained what I am looking for and why I need your help.  I am sure that some of you will immediately be able to identify some more of the unknown or unidentified photos and will be able to make corrections as well as to add more details and identify other photos.  A few of the unknowns do have some captions that I was unable to make out or decipher.  Even if you can only identify one (or more) individuals in a group photo, please let me know what you know.  Please feel free to correct anything that you find wrong.  I would like to have the information as accurate as possible for posterity.  . 

I have tried to eliminate as many duplicate photos as possible.  A few dupes have been used in different albums ~if~ for example, they might be of an individual ~and~ then also be used to show a different type of vehicle used by the Highway Patrol.  Please let me know of other duplicates that you find as well as errors, or other corrections that need to be made. 

To view the photo albums Click On the appropriate album link listed (below).   Google®  Highway Patrol link

Please be patient with me.   This photo project has truly been a priority for me and I have really been working on it as fast as I possibly can within my limited free time.  Even though I recently retired from full-time teaching (my second retirement as I had earlier retired from an active law enforcement and bomb squad career)  I felt it necessary to begin part-time teaching and consulting.  This has very quickly developed into a situation that is taking up far more of my time than I had anticipated.   Meanwhile I am still trying to learn how to fully adjust and adapt to the economic disaster of retirement living, the aging process, while trying to  develop a more efficient method to better manage time and activities.    I do eagerly await your information, corrections, and any input for pending captions.    Thank you.    Larry Linville    webmaster@62HP.org

Click on the appropriate Album that you wish to open.
 

Album HP 1 - includes photos of Individuals, Partners and Small Groups .   .   .   .   .   .    .   .   .   .   .   .   available
Album HP 2 - includes photos of as yet unidentified Individuals, Partners and Small Groups .   .   .   .   available

approx. 208 images
approx. 191 images

Samples of photos on Albums HP 1 & HP 2:

Album HP 3 - includes photos of Larger Groups, Detachments, and Unit Formations .   .   .   .   .   .   .    available

approx. 42 images

Samples of photos on Album HP 3:    Can you provide any information about any of the photos in the album?

793^rd. MP (HP) Nurnburg
 Military Post, circa 1948-49.  (#g1)

Album HP 4 - includes photos of vehicles of the HP (also accidents & incidents investigated) .   .   .   .   .   .  available

approx. 112 images

Samples of photos on Album HP 4:

Album HP 5 - includes photos of Places, Events, and Activities in HP History .   .   .   .   .   .    .   .   .   .   available

approx. 69 images

Samples of photos on Album HP 5:

Album HP * - includes photos from various Reunions of the HP Association:

Album 6a - 2001 (5^th. annual) reunion meeting in Rapid City, South Dakota .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   . available

approx. 99 images

Album 6b - 2002 (6^th.annual)  reunion meeting at Fort Mitchell, Kentucky .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .    available

approx. 54 images

Album 6c - 2003 (7^th. annual)  reunion meeting in Las Vegas, Nevada .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .    available

approx. 50 images

Album 6d - 2004 (8^th. annual)  reunion meeting in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .available

approx. 68 images

Album 6e - 2005 (9^th. annual)  reunion meeting in Chattanooga, Tennessee .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  available

approx. 70 images

Album 6f - 2006 (10^th. annual)  reunion meeting in Williamsburg, Virginia .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   . available

approx. 59 images

Album 6g - 2007 (11^th. annual)  reunion meeting in Branson, Missouri .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   . available

approx. 97 images

Samples of photos on the various Albums of HP 6:

Album HP 7 - includes copies of various Documents, Articles, and Clippings  .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .    available

approx. 77 images

Samples of items on Album HP 7: