The following is from the WW II era Archives of Maryland, State Papers and Addresses of Governor Herbert L. O’Conor in response to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor:
The mission of the Maryland Minute Men is to furnish immediately, local protection against parachute troops, saboteurs, or organized raiding parties. It is planned that the units be confined to their own communities so that there will be assurance at all times that every residential section of Maryland will have protection.
No prescribed complete uniform will be required. Distinctive arm bands and caps or other items may be furnished by the State, the County, or by the men themselves. For the present the hard-pressed Ordinance Department of the United States Army cannot be expected to furnish sufficient arms, ammunition, or equipment. Hence, the volunteers, for the most part, will be expected to furnish their own weapons. For this reason, gunners (of whom there are 60, 000 licensed in Maryland), members of Rod and Gun Clubs, of Trap Shooting and similar organizations, will be expected to constitute a part of this new military organization.
Officers will be drawn from the immediate area in which they are to serve. As Army officers have pointed out to me, the familiarity of the members with their particular locality, with the terrain and road not in the respective communities, will be of great value in resisting any hostile efforts against residental areas and important public necessities.
No intensive training program will be adopted. While sufficient preparatory work must be undertaken by the Minute Men, care will be taken to avoid unnecessary demands1 upon their time. No guard duty is to be included as a regular part of the program for the new force.
Retired officers of the regular Army, Marine Corps or State Guard will be sought to supervise the training. The program will embrace basic field training and basic small arms instruction. The field training will include the study of terrain from the military viewpoint, establishment and maintenance of communications, practice assemblies in daylight and in dark, and other courses.
Arms instructions will cover teaching how to load and unload weapons, examination of weapons as to working order; effective firing positions, special instructions in sighting and aiming, rapid firing technique, and other duties.
Military officials, in emphasizing the value of such an organization point out that the familiarity which the members will enjoy with the faces, customs and habits of their neighbors in the communty, makes them most valuable in combating sabotage efforts. They will detect, even more quickly than a secret service man from the outside, any strange faces in the community, or any unusual activities on the part of local inhabitants.
The Maryland Minute Men, armed with weapons with which they are thoroughly familiar from long use, operating in a community in which they are accustomed to every road and trail and stream, and aroused to fighting pitch by the knowledge that they are serving to protect their own homes, their family and all that they hold dear in life, will prove a staunch defense againstany enemy activity.
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