Camp X? I bet you're wondering “what camp x is?” Well let me tell you. Camp X was an intense spy training camp during world war two, the camp was kept top secret and not many knew about it. There they were training american and canadian spies in elite warfare. The students trained using active fire, in both bombs and gunfire. The spies were in bomb training and were also trained for things like morse code, sabotage, quick kill, and silent kill. Every student was trained in every skill as once they left Camp X for deployment none knew where their mission would be or what it may intail. To make sure they were excellent spies the spies trained hard to be able to match the enemies ruthlessness. Special training school 103 was another name for camp x, camp x first opened on December 6th,1941. Camp x was located in Whitby/ , only 50 km away from the American border, and right beside which was good for some underwater explosive training. The reason the training school could not be in the US, was that the Americans were forbidden by an act of congress to enter the war, so choosing a site in Canada became the logically solution. Locals in the area believed the space to be a CBC communications area.

Camp X was a very hard core training operation because they weren’t only training to be spies but they were going to war to save their countries Canada, America, and Britain. Men and women from each of these countries and states attended camp x for at least six months. Camp X had instructors that taught them how to kill, and how to act, and escape, as well as making a plan of action,or crawling to safety. At camp x the students were taught many different ways to strike their enemy and take them down in many unique forms, such as the handshake maneuver causing the opponent's arm to lock which makes them more vulnerable and easier to take out, or striking the enemies neck with a small knife killing them making it easier. Camp x was opened in the first place to create a “secret war” acting from the “inside” more or less making them have an advantage on where to attack and how to do so. Some students that were recruited were foreign expatriates living in the US and Canada that were able to speak the language in some of the areas that the war was taking place. They were put their posing as locals gathering intel to send back to Camp X allowing the allies to attack unknown.

It was rumored that was trained at camp x and then went on basing the James Bond movies off of their training methods. This has never been a proven fact but what is a proven fact is the CIA was started by some of the american students that attended the school. Ater the proven success of camp x and the students that attented there, several schools in the U.S. and other places around the world had begun to open. We now have the information from a training manual made by Paul Dehn but what Dehn didn't know when he was writing the manual he himself was being spied on by a double Russian spy who was leaking information. A double spy is a spy that is trained to act like they are working or their opponent giving them the advantage of knowing all the inside information.

Camp X had training methods unlike any other they had to be prepared for anything. They were prepared to make up a story line at any given time, or to strike their opponents whenever needed without being caught. They had a trainer named Mj. William Fairburn, Fairburn trained the men and women in hand to hand combat his training methods were not regular army training ways, death was almost always the end result. Camp X had perfected plastic explosives and Aunt Jemima was the code name to a powdered explosive that was baked into foods that could be snuck into enemy areas that would then explode and kill its opponent. As well as the elite training they received, they also had elite clothing and every day items. In a basement in Toronto’s Casa Loma museum was where special spy clothing and such was manufactured. Seamstresses made silk scarves that would have detailed maps of the areas that the spies were being deployed. Combs would contain a compass, the clothing would match the clothing types of the deployment areas. All to have their spies go unrecognized. One german agent made the mistake of wearing an american made watch to a bar and was questioned on it, without missing a beat he told them he purchased it off of a german soldier that has killed an american and taken his watch. Not one thing was left to chance, as they knew what losing the war could mean for the World.

Camp X was very progressive in some of their technology. They had a Hydra decoding system. Hydra operated 24/7, mostly by women. The decoding system was especially useful in decoding the German U-boat correspondence.Winifred Gardner (Davidson) was one of the first women trained at camp X. She worked in the communications area as a keyboard operator. They were given one week to learn morse code, before they were made to translate the incoming messages, The machine they used was called a, Kleinschmidt teletype machine. So the messages would come in to them as morse code and once they transcribed the messages they went out on a punch tape. The challenge for the operators was the volume of information coming in. Pat Bailey (who was a Canadian)was the head of the communications department,who developed a machine called the Rock X, which took uncoded messages and turned them into coded ones. The thing that was special about this machine was that you needed the two pieces of coded tape to make one message. Once placed one on top of the other the true message was revealed. Without both tapes the messages were useless.

Camp X was a very successful aspect of world war two but all good things must come to an end. Camp X ended up shutting down in 1946, and was taken over by the Canadain government in 1947 as a military signals station until it was eventually closed in 1969 and destroyed. Today a small space remains of what was camp X,now known as Intrepid park, designated as a provincial park, where you can find a monument commemorating it. The name Intrepid was the code name for Sir ,of MB, who was of of the founding members, aside Sir ,of Camp X. Camp X was an amazing part of Canadain history and the second world war being a huge part of our victory. I hope you enjoyed learning about a large part of our history in Canada.