Camp X

Camp-X was the unofficial name of a World War II paramilitary and commando training installation located on the border of Whitby and Oshawa, Ontario, Canada, operated the British Security Co-Ordination (BSC) and the Government of Canada. Official names were many: S 25-1-1 by the RCMP, Project-J by the Canadian military, and STS-103 (Special Training School 103) by the SOE (Special Operations Executive), a branch of the British MI-6.

It was established December 6, 1941 by the BSC's chief, Sir William Stephenson, was a Canadian from Winnipeg, Manitoba, and a close confidant of Sir Winston Churchill. The Camp was first opened for the purpose of training American COI (forerunner to the CIA) agents who would be dropped in behind enemy lines as spies and saboteurs at a time when the US was forbidden by an Act of Congress to be involved in World War Two.

Camp-X trained over five hundred Allied secret agents. They trained in a variety of special techniques such as silent killing, sabotage, Partisan work and recruitment methods for the resistance movement, demolition, map reading, weaponry, and Morse code.

One of the unique features of Camp-X was Hydra, a sophisticated telecommunications center. Given its name by its operators, Hydra was instrumental in coding and decoding information in relative safety from the prying ears of German radio listening. The Camp was an excellent location for the transfer of code due to the topography of the land, Lake Ontario made it an excellent site for listening to signals from the UK. Hydra had direct access to Ottawa, New York and Washington via telegraph and telephone

The Camp X Historical society has more information for those interested. www.campxhistoricalsociety.ca