CANADA’S CONTRIBUTION TO THE WAR CAMP X

CAMP X Camp X AKA STS 103 (special training school) was established on the shores of Lake Ontario between Oshawa and Whitby on December 6th, 1941. It was established through the joint effort of the BSC (British Security Co-ordination) and the Government of Canada. The purpose of the camp was to provide the British SOE (Special Operations Executive) with a covert training facility for Allied secret agents who would operate across occupied Europe. It was also contained an important communication center code named Hydra.

The location of the camp was carefully chosen. It was originally intended to link Britain to the US who was not yet ‘officially’ engaged in the war and forbidden to be directly involved. The camp’s location was ideal for a number of reasons: It was only about 1 hour from Toronto yet remote enough to go unnoticed. The United States was only 30 miles away. It provided a good location from which to send/receive radio signals to Europe, South America and the US. It was close to the largest armament factory in North America in Ajax. It was a short distance away from a German POW camp in Oshawa. Close to the Oshawa airport (commonwealth air-training school). Canada’s diverse population.

Camp X was established through the efforts of William Stephenson code named Intrepid (Chief of the BSC) . Stephenson was Canadian, born in Winnipeg, and a close acquaintance of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Stephenson was a decorated WWI pilot and inventor. He was later nicknamed the “The Quiet Canadian.

The goal of the camp was to be the “…clenched fist that would provide the knockout blow..” to the Axis (Germany, Italy, Japan). It was also part of the SOE’s plan to “…set Europe ablaze”.

TRAINING Training of special operatives included a ten week course in such diverse skills as: survival skills, radio operation, infiltration, explosives, counter-intelligence, map reading, combat exercises, disguise, assassination, Morse code, intense physical training, hand to hand combat, sabotage, small arms, parachuting, agent recruitment, and propaganda. The OSS operated an ‘assassination and elimination’ training program referred to as "the school of mayhem and murder“.

The camp eventually succeeded in training more than five hundred special operatives. Agents faced immense danger and many were tortured and killed (est. 5% success rate of missions). In 1946, Camp-X ceased operations as a training facility for secret agents. The camp survived the transition to the Cold War by becoming a top-secret communications facility until 1969.

All that remains of Camp-X today is a monument on top of a hill overlooking 'Intrepid Park'.

Camp-X was an important factor in the development of many modern intelligence agencies such as the CIA. The CIA even named their recruit training facility "The Farm", a nod to the original farm that existed at the Camp X site. Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond was trained here. William Stevenson became the model for the Character M in the series.