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Camp X was the unofficial name of the secret Special Training School No. 103, a WW2 British paramilitary installation for training covert agents in the methods required for success in clandestine operations. It was located on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario between Whitby and Oshawa in Ontario, Canada. The area is known today as Intrepid Park, after the code name for Sir William Stephenson, Director of British Security Co-ordination (BSC), who established the program to create the training facility.
The facility was jointly operated by the Canadian military, with help from Foreign Affairs and the RCMP but commanded by the BSC; it also had close ties with MI-6. In addition to the training program, the Camp had a communications tower that could send and transmit radio and telegraph communications, called Hydra.
Camp X was established December 6, 1941 by the chief of British Security Co-ordination (BSC), Sir William Stephenson, a Canadian from Winnipeg, Manitoba and a close confidant of Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The camp was originally designed to link Britain and the US at a time when the US was forbidden by the Neutrality Act to be directly involved in WW2.
On the day before the attack on Pearl Harbor and America's entry into the war, Camp X had opened for the purpose of training Allied agents from the Special Operations Executive (SOE), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) intended to be dropped behind enemy lines for clandestine missions as saboteurs and spies.
However, even before the United States entered the war on December 8, 1941, agents from America's intelligence services expressed an interest in sending personnel for training at the soon to be opened Camp X. Agents from the FBI and the OSS (forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency, or CIA) secretly attended Camp X in early 1942; at least a dozen attended at least some training.
"Trainees at the camp learned sabotage techniques, subversion, intelligence gathering, lock picking, explosives training, radio communications, encode/decode, recruiting techniques for partisans, the art of silent killing and unarmed combat."
The facility was jointly operated by the Canadian military, with help from Foreign Affairs and the RCMP but commanded by the BSC; it also had close ties with MI-6. In addition to the training program, the Camp had a communications tower that could send and transmit radio and telegraph communications, called Hydra.
Camp X was established December 6, 1941 by the chief of British Security Co-ordination (BSC), Sir William Stephenson, a Canadian from Winnipeg, Manitoba and a close confidant of Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The camp was originally designed to link Britain and the US at a time when the US was forbidden by the Neutrality Act to be directly involved in WW2.
On the day before the attack on Pearl Harbor and America's entry into the war, Camp X had opened for the purpose of training Allied agents from the Special Operations Executive (SOE), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) intended to be dropped behind enemy lines for clandestine missions as saboteurs and spies.
However, even before the United States entered the war on December 8, 1941, agents from America's intelligence services expressed an interest in sending personnel for training at the soon to be opened Camp X. Agents from the FBI and the OSS (forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency, or CIA) secretly attended Camp X in early 1942; at least a dozen attended at least some training.
After Stephenson established the facility and acted as the Camp's first head, the first commandant was Lt. Col. Arthur Terence Roper-Caldbeck. The most notable individual in the Camp's history was Colonel William "Wild Bill" Donovan, war-time head of the OSS, who credited Stephenson with teaching Americans about foreign intelligence gathering. The CIA even named their recruit training facility "The Farm", a nod to the original farm that existed at the Camp X site.
Camp X was jointly operated by the BSC and the Government of Canada. There were several names for the school: S 25-1-1 by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), Project-J by the Canadian military, and Special Training School No. 103. The latter was set by the Special Operations Executive, administered under the cover of the Ministry of Economic Warfare (MEW) which operated the facility. In 1942 the Commandant of the camp was Lieutenant R. M. Brooker of the British Army.
In addition to operating an excellent document forging facility, Camp X trained numerous Allied covert operatives. An estimate published by the CBC states that "By war's end, between 500 and 2,000 Allied agents had been trained (figures vary) and sent abroad..." behind enemy lines.
Reports indicate that graduates worked as "secret agents, security personnel, intelligence officers, or psychological warfare experts, serving in clandestine operations". Many were captured, tortured, and executed; survivors received no individual recognition for their efforts."
The predominant close-combat trainer for the British Special Operations Executive was William E. Fairbairn, called "Dangerous Dan". With instructor Eric A. Sykes, they trained numerous agents for the SOE and OSS. Fairbairn's technique was "Get down in the gutter, and win at all costs … no more playing fair … to kill or be killed."
Camp X was jointly operated by the BSC and the Government of Canada. There were several names for the school: S 25-1-1 by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), Project-J by the Canadian military, and Special Training School No. 103. The latter was set by the Special Operations Executive, administered under the cover of the Ministry of Economic Warfare (MEW) which operated the facility. In 1942 the Commandant of the camp was Lieutenant R. M. Brooker of the British Army.
In addition to operating an excellent document forging facility, Camp X trained numerous Allied covert operatives. An estimate published by the CBC states that "By war's end, between 500 and 2,000 Allied agents had been trained (figures vary) and sent abroad..." behind enemy lines.
Reports indicate that graduates worked as "secret agents, security personnel, intelligence officers, or psychological warfare experts, serving in clandestine operations". Many were captured, tortured, and executed; survivors received no individual recognition for their efforts."
The predominant close-combat trainer for the British Special Operations Executive was William E. Fairbairn, called "Dangerous Dan". With instructor Eric A. Sykes, they trained numerous agents for the SOE and OSS. Fairbairn's technique was "Get down in the gutter, and win at all costs … no more playing fair … to kill or be killed."
"Trainees at the camp learned sabotage techniques, subversion, intelligence gathering, lock picking, explosives training, radio communications, encode/decode, recruiting techniques for partisans, the art of silent killing and unarmed combat."
One of the unique features of Camp X was Hydra, a highly sophisticated telecommunications relay station established in May 1942 by engineer Benjamin deForest Bayly. Bayly was the assistant director, with British army rank of lieutenant colonel. He also invented a very fast offline, one-time tape cipher machine for coding/decoding telegraph transmissions labelled the Rockex or "Telekrypton".
Communication training, including Morse code, was also provided. The camp was so secret that even Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King was unaware of its full purpose.
Traitors ..
After it had closed, starting in the autumn of 1945, Camp X was used by the RCMP as a secure location for interviewing Soviet embassy GRU cypher-clerk Igor Gouzenko, who had defected to Canada on September 5, 1945 (3 days after end of WW2) and revealed an extensive Soviet espionage operation in the country. Gouzenko provided 109 documents on the USSR′s espionage activities in the West. This forced Canada′s Prime Minister Mackenzie King to call a Royal Commission to investigate espionage in Canada.
Gouzenko exposed Soviet intelligence' efforts to steal nuclear secrets as well as the technique of planting sleeper agents. The "Gouzenko Affair" is often credited as a triggering event of the Cold War, with historian Jack Granatstein stating it was "the beginning of the Cold War for public opinion" and journalist Robert Fulford writing he was "absolutely certain the Cold War began in Ottawa". Granville Hicks described Gouzenko's actions as having "awakened the people of North America to the magnitude and the danger of Soviet espionage".
Gouzenko passed along copies of GRU documents implicating British physicist Nunn May, including details of the proposed meeting in London.
Nunn May did not go to the British Museum meeting, but he was arrested in March 1946. Nunn May confessed to espionage. On 1 May 1946, he was sentenced to ten years' hard labour. He was released in late 1952, after serving six and a half years.
Gouzenko and his family spent two years at the Camp X facility.
Traitors ..
After it had closed, starting in the autumn of 1945, Camp X was used by the RCMP as a secure location for interviewing Soviet embassy GRU cypher-clerk Igor Gouzenko, who had defected to Canada on September 5, 1945 (3 days after end of WW2) and revealed an extensive Soviet espionage operation in the country. Gouzenko provided 109 documents on the USSR′s espionage activities in the West. This forced Canada′s Prime Minister Mackenzie King to call a Royal Commission to investigate espionage in Canada.
Gouzenko exposed Soviet intelligence' efforts to steal nuclear secrets as well as the technique of planting sleeper agents. The "Gouzenko Affair" is often credited as a triggering event of the Cold War, with historian Jack Granatstein stating it was "the beginning of the Cold War for public opinion" and journalist Robert Fulford writing he was "absolutely certain the Cold War began in Ottawa". Granville Hicks described Gouzenko's actions as having "awakened the people of North America to the magnitude and the danger of Soviet espionage".
Gouzenko passed along copies of GRU documents implicating British physicist Nunn May, including details of the proposed meeting in London.
Nunn May did not go to the British Museum meeting, but he was arrested in March 1946. Nunn May confessed to espionage. On 1 May 1946, he was sentenced to ten years' hard labour. He was released in late 1952, after serving six and a half years.
Gouzenko and his family spent two years at the Camp X facility.
The training facility closed before the end of 1944; the buildings were removed in 1969 and a monument was erected at the site.
