Camp X

This article is about a secret espionage and saboteur training base. For the novel by Eric Walters, see Camp X (novel).
  • Camp X
  • S 25-1-1
  • Project-J
  • Special Training School 103
Near Whitby, Ontario in Canada
Camp X in 1943
Camp X is located in Ontario
Camp X
Camp X
Shown within Ontario
Coordinates43°51′15″N 078°53′06″W / 43.85417°N 78.88500°W / 43.85417; -78.88500
TypeTraining installation
Site history
BuiltDecember 6, 1941 (1941-12-06)
In use1941–1969 (1969)
FateDestroyed
Garrison information
Past
commanders		Sir William Stephenson, Lt. Col. Arthur Terence Roper-Caldbeck
Occupants

Camp X was the unofficial name of the secret Special Training School No. 103, a Second World War British paramilitary installation for training covert agents in the methods required for success in clandestine operations.[1] 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 MI6.[2] In addition to the training program, the Camp had a communications tower that could send and transmit radio and telegraph communications, called Hydra.[3]

Established December 6, 1941, the training facility closed before the end of 1944; the buildings were removed in 1969 and a monument was erected at the site.[4][5]

Historian Bruce Forsyth summarized the purpose of the facility: "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." Communication training, including Morse code, was also provided. The existence of the camp was kept such a secret that even Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King was unaware of its full purpose.[6]

  1. ^ "Ontario War Memorials". Ontario War Memorials. 14 August 2012. Retrieved 23 March 2013.
  2. ^ "Camp X 75th Anniversary: A Brief History – Dispatches – X Company". Cbc.ca. Retrieved 17 December 2017.
  3. ^ Montgomery, Marc (July 14, 2014). "The mystery of Camp-X, Canada's secretive spy school". RCI Net. Radio Canada International. Retrieved March 16, 2017. The documentary, Camp-X, uses recreations of scenes along with actual recent archeological digging at the site to recover artefacts, and interviews with former "agents" and people associated with the spy school.
  4. ^ "A Brief History". Cbc.ca. December 6, 2016. Retrieved March 16, 2017.
  5. ^ Sachgau, Oliver (12 November 2015). "Canada's spies honoured at historic camp site". Toronto Star. Retrieved 17 December 2017.
  6. ^ "Camp X – Canada's Secret Spy School – Canadian Military History". militarybruce.com. Retrieved 17 December 2017.