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What was Camp X? · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Josh, my friend. If you are a listener of ours
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  Speaker 1: hope to see everyone out there. Welcome to Stuff you
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: should know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry Rolls. Stuff you should know the podcast.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: That's right, And Buddy, I am happy to be doing
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: another grabst article. Getting him back in the fold has
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: been a true boon for this organization. You so much so, Chuck.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: I think that we should see if Noel can whip
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: us up a little Grabster theme music to play when
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: we do a grab star article. What do you think? Yeah, okay,
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: well we'll see Grabsters in the metal maybe it can
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: be metal themed. Yeah, but Noel's into the mogue, so
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: he'll maybe he'll be a weird mashup of that. Yeah.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: I'm pretty excited about this. And this is one, uh
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: for those of you don't know, we're talking about Ed Grabanowski,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: one of our favorite writers here who hadn't been doing
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: a lot of writing for us, and we specifically petitioned
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: to get Ed right and again and not even just that.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Can we send Ed ideas specifically for this show that
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: we think are great because we know he will do
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: right by them. And this is one of those. Because
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: someone wrote in wish I had the email, but someone
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: wrote in suggesting camp X and I had never heard
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: of it the little research and I was like, oh man,
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: this is a grab Stoar article if I've ever heard one.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: I was gonna ask you where you where you heard
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: of this because I hadn't heard of it, either listener
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: mail or Facebook. It's pretty awesome whoever sent that that suggestion,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: and hats off to you, thanks for it. So camp
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: X for those of you who haven't heard of it. Um,
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: hopefully we're not the only ones, right, only ones who
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: haven't heard of it? Right? It's pretty little known I
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: think among general circles. I think enthusiasts and war uh.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Historians probably no more about it. Maybe re enactors, sure,
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: why not? Um? Well, aside from those people, if you
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: haven't heard of Camp X, don't feel bad because it
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: was meant to be that way. It was a secret camp.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: It was basically a camp to treat to train good
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: guy terrorists in World War Two. Good guy terrorists saboteurs, saboteur,
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: I like that word. Propagandists, uh, Morse code operators, assassins,
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: basically the guys who went over as secret agents and
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: just messed up stuff in Europe and I believe Africa
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: as well, North Africa, uh for the Allies during World
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: War Two. Yeah. And if there's one thing I learned
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: through this article is, even though I'm a liberal peacenick,
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: if I would have been alive during that generation and
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: had to go to war, I would totally have wanted
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: to have been a sabbateur. Oh yeah, like all the
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: movies like The Great Escape and Victory and all these
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: great World War Two movies I watched growing up. I
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: was never about like the front line battles, and you
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: mean some of those movies are okay, But man, you
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: show me a movie about dude sneaking around the dead
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: of night to blow up a bridge, and I'm all
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: over that. Have you seen fox Fire, the Clint Eastwood
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: movie where he had to go steal a plane? Was
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: it Firefox or fox Fire? Fox Fire? Was it Firefox?
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: I think we're I think it was fox Fire and
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: we're just being misled by the web browser. Yeah, yeah,
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: I do too. I saw that it was a special plane,
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: wasn't it. Yeah, and he had to go steal it. Yeah,
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: and just bridge over the river quiet like I watched
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: all Dirty Dozen, all those movies that were about small
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: groups of soldiers infiltrating quietly and breaking havoc from the inside. Man,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: I love that Big Red One. Oh yeah, that's my
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: first R rated movie, the guns and Avron. Yes, remember
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: poor Mark Hamil's testicles get blown off in Big Red
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: One by grenade. I thought you were gonna say Mark
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: Camil's port testicles. Anyway, they they they got blown off,
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: and Lee Marvin was like, you don't need these anymore
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: and just like tosses them away. I remember, like I said,
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: it was my first R rated movie. I remember being
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: in the movie theater at Toco Hills here in Atlanta
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: and seeing those test skills being tossed down to him
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: and I was horrified. So anyway that got weird. Can't
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: camp it usually does. Camp X was a place where
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: those people and those movies that you love may have
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: been trained. It was quite literally a secret agent training
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: camp in World War Two, and like the kind where
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: you know, now you look back and you're like, yeah,
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: that sounds like something from a James Bond novel or
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: something like that. It actually is kind of the thing
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: that inspired later fiction like James Bond, Like this is
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: where it really happened. And it was in this little
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: place in the middle of nowhere along Lake Ontario uh
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: in Ontario, Canada, about thirty miles over the lake from
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: the United States. Should we get back in the way
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: back machine. Oh, we're gonna go to Camp X. Maybe
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: we'll keep your head down because they use live fire.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: All right, here we go, all right, here we are,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: and the wars raging, but the United States is not
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: yet involved. Officially because um, well, because we were the
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: United States, we were kind of way over where we
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: where we sit and on positioned on the planet Earth,
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: and all the fighting was going on over there, so
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: we were sort of isolated from that. And although President
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: Roosevelt was like, man, uh, we technically should be going
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: over there and helping out Britain battle the Nazis because
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: they're not good guys, and we should probably join up,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: but there is pressure for us to remain over here
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: and not get involved just yet. Yeah. Well, there's a
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: huge isolationist movement that joined with the peace movement that
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: was basically like, no, we remember World War One and
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: how horrible that was. We need to stay out of this.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: Let that be a European war. Did you know? Um,
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: there were actually elements from friendly countries. They're like Roald Dahl,
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: the guy who wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: Ian Flaming, the guy who went on to write, um,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: the James Bond novels. They were working as agents for
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: the British government here in the US, working to kind
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: of propagandized against that isolationist movement to get the US
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: to enter the war and help Britain out. Yeah, and
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: in fact, you mentioned Bond earlier, we might as well
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: go ahead and say that there were rumors that Ian
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: flaming and did actually go to Campex to train, even
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: though those were I think completely unsubstantiated. Is that right.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: He probably visited and said hi because he was friends
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: with one of the people in charge there, but he um,
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: and he definitely was in America at the time it
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: was operating. Um, So he probably went by there, but
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: he didn't train there. As far as anyone knows, the
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: World War two is going on, even though they didn't
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: call it that at the time. And um, which is
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: something that got right in the new Wonder One Woman movie.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: By the way, man, that was one of the best
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: superhero movies I've seen in a long time. It was great. Yeah,
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: in pretty much every way. Yea, uh so, World War
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: two is raging. Roosevelts wants to get involved but can't
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: really officially do it, but he does know that Hey,
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: even though we're not officially involved, we probably need to
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: kind of get unofficially involved and at least start gathering
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: intelligence and start getting information going and kind of just
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: do our pre war due diligence I guess you could say, yeah, like,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: at the very least, there are probably a lot of agents,
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: and not just from friendly nations working in the United States,
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: so we should at least have an intelligence service that
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: can battle those guys, if not assist with the the war. Right.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: But that's a tough thing to get going from scratch,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: as that points out. But there was a country, uh,
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: great Britain, who was very experienced in this field from
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: all their years um traveling the world is one way
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: you could say it, uh, but the friendliest way you
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: can say it, yeah, um, And they were really really
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: experienced with this, and they had great intelligence operations and
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: they said, you know what, we'll come in and we'll
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: we'll we'll help you out, we'll get you going. Yeah
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: they did. In the U said okay, but don't tell
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: anybody because we're neutral, right, and they went sure, sure.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: So to facilitate this, I think at the time they
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: weren't necessarily sure where this was going, but they wanted
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: to form a partnership. So the British Security Coordination, which
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: was a an office of the Special Operations Executive, which
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: is itself a branch of m I six right. Um,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: they set up an office, a secret office at Rockefeller
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: Center in New York. How awesome is that it is?
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: Even on the plaque on the on the wall said
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: that it was British Passport Control, completely undercover British office
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: that was meant to act as the liaison between the
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: British secret operations and America's super secret operations. That was
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: so super secret it shouldn't have even existed. And that
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: office would later become Lauren Michael's office, right at least
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: in my mind, to you Lauren Michael's impression. Uh no,
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: that's pretty good. So you've got thirty Rock, you've got
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: an outpost set up. They were kind of getting things going,
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: um and it was headed up at that time. Did
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: you say William Stevenson, No not Yeah. He was a
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: Canadian who actually served Britain as a fighter pilot in
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: World War One, and he was the head of the
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: BSc at the time, and he is roundly considered to
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: have been the inspiration for James Bond. He was the
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: real deal. He drank martinis at lunch, yeah, and killed
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: people with his bare hands, and like he was. He
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: was the real deal. So he was the one who
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: set up originally Camp X and I think he had
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: his fingers and a lot of other pots. And Ian
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: Fleming actually did work directly beneath him, as did Rawl Dahl.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: Well they have it, aren't you? Just fascinated by the
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: fact that the guy wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: was a a secret agent working in America in the authorities.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: It's great, and you know what, he wrote those children's books,
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: but he also had a an entire bookshelf full of
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: kind of body raunchy adult books that he had written, right,
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: it was great. Everyone just thinks him as a kid's author,
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: but he was much much more. Well, it's like with
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: Anthony Burgess, who wrote a clockwork Orange also wrote children's
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: books too. Well, that's disturbing. So uh, Canada at this time,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: um well, and it still is. His head points out
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: Commonwealth and are part of the Commonwealth, and they wanted
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: to support Britain, but they also wanted to go to
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: war as Canada and assert themselves and say, but we're Canada,
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: We're going as Canada. So so the Brits are like, alright, alright,
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: everybody call him out, find whatever. Let's just let's just
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: chill out here, right. How about we set up a
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: secret camp in Canada to facilitate the training of Canadian
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: and American secret agents. How about that yet? And they
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: said how secret? And they said so secret that Prime
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: Minister Mackenzie King is not a way And then they
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: just dropped their tea and said you've got us and
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: his monocle popped out. So yeah that the Prime Minister
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: didn't even know about this thing until it was well underway,
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: because I think they were afraid he would say no, right, yeah,
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: but do you know how mad I would be as
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: Prime minister finding out after the fact. I'd be like, guys,
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: come on, it's me Mackenzie. You know me, Big Mac.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: Don't you know me? So? Uh, Stevenson said, let's pull
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: the trigger on this. They got a businessman from Vancouver
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: named A. J. Taylor I love this to buy two
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: hundred and sixty acres they called them a hundred and
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: five hectares in Canada and Canada by this land near
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: um Oshawa, Ontario, for twelve grand under the name the
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: Rural Realty Company Comma Ltd. Period, which is British for ink.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: Oh is it? Yeah? Okay, it means the same thing. Yeah,
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: that's what I figured so um this this land. It
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: was one of the reasons they was selected was it
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: was extremely remote. There were towns around it, but you
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: could barely consider them towns they were so small and
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: sparsely populated. Then this place was in the middle of
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: nowhere and near these middle of nowhere towns. But it
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: also had very terrain like there's a swamp. The part
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: that butted up against Lake Ontario was cliff like and
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: it actually kind of resembled some of the cliffs of
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: France that would later be scale during D Day. Um
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: there was open planes and fields, there were woods, basically
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: everything you would need to train somebody to do some
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: damage in Europe. Yeah, that was pretty simple. Far house, farmhouse,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: there was some storage facilities, and then they added, of
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: course barracks, built some classrooms and eventually we'll we'll talk
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: about the radio station there. But they built a building
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: to house this radio equipment that would be pretty key
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: kiss one of four f M sound of Oshawa. All right,
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: So they get this place up and going right. And again,
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: the whole reason it's in Canada's because America is officially
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: neutral and it's not supposed to be training secret agents
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: under the guy under the guidance of the British that's
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: just not supposed to be happening. And irony of ironies
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: is that Camp X, which is not its official name. Um.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: They had a number of different official names, which really
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: kind gets across just what a secret installation it was
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: that didn't have one official name. Um. But Camp X
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: opened on December six. The next day the Japanese attacked
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: Pearl Harbor Summer seventh, nineteen forty one, and right after
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: that the US entered the war. And this guy who
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: runs this website and has written a couple of books
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: on Camp X, I think it's the camp ex official
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: site dot com maybe. Um. He points out that had
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor six months earlier, Camp X
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: never would have existed, because they would have just built
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: it in the US because the US centered the war,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: and in fact, there were plenty of other secret agent
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: camps that were built in the US. But they kept
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: Camp X going not just to train Americans but also
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: to train Canadians as well. Yeah, and so that the people, um,
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: like you said, no one officially called it Camp X,
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: that that name came from the local Uh, what few
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: local people were near there, just because it was so mysterious.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: They called it Camp up X, or they called it,
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: quote the secret military camp. Right. The people that were
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: actually their training called it the farm because of kind
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: of you know, the fields and the orchards everywhere. Uh.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: And the official designation wash STS one oh three Special
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: Training School one oh three, Right, and then the Royal
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: Canadian Mounted Police had their own name for it too,
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: which was S two five dash one dash one man,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: This is getting good. The Canadian military called it Project
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: JA really yeah, interesting, Yeah, But don't you think that
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: kind of like gets across that this is so secret
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: that that no one really knew what to call it.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: It shall not be named. It's like what's his face?
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: Love craft Ian camp? Right? Should we take a break?
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: I think so? All right, we'll be back and we'll
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: talk about what training was like, and i'll give you
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: a hint rigorous all right, Chuck. So the training there,
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: if you went there, and there's actually a discrepancy here
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: between the Camp X site and what ED is saying.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: What what the Camp X official site is saying is
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: that when you go there, you're basically going into what
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: amounts to basic secret agent training, and you are you're
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: trained in all these different ways, and then if you
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: don't wash out, which is supposedly a tremendous percentage of
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: a very high percentage of the people who went in
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: didn't make it through. But if you if you made
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: it through this training, which was between three and ten
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: weeks depending on who you ask UM, you would then
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: go on to Britain two different finishing schools depending on
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: what you excel at during this generalized basic secret agent training.
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: And then once you finished finishing school, the British Secrets
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: Services would um design a secret mission based exclusively for
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: you around your talents, and then drop you behind enemy
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: lines and you go do some crazy stuff. What's pretty amazing, right, Yeah,
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: So like they would say, Chap, you've got the real
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: neck for the bang bang. So they would send them
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: to bridge blowing up school exactly, and then then you
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: go below up the bridge over the river Quai Man Alright.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: So regardless, everyone went through some of the same basic
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: things or maybe everyone at Camp X. Maybe it's so
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: secret nobody knows for sure, that's kind of the way
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: it is. But everyone would learn things like um kind
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: of some basic I guess what I call it basic training,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: but some basic things of sad but were one oh one,
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: like how to read a map in a foreign language,
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: how to draw a map to lead someone to where
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: you need to be, um, how to take a guy
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: out with your bare hands, how to fire a gun
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: in the dark, how to put together a gun in
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: the dark and fire it in the dark using something
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: that I've never heard of called instinctive gun fighting. Yeah,
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: so that's where rather than saying like freeze bad guy
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: and getting down on one knee and closing one eye
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: and looking down the sights and pretty much yeah, like
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: the streets of San Francisco or something, right, you just
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: you're running and shooting. You're not even using the sites.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: You just are are using basically your hand as your guide. Um,
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: and you're shooting people at a distance of at least
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: twenty ft and like you said, oftentimes in the dark.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: And this may all come as part of the training.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: After you've been dropped off in an abandoned farmhouse told
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: to find a bag of gun parts and put it
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: together in the dark and come out shooting. What was
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: that deal in that? Like seventies cop shows where they
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: would hold their wrist to study their gun hand you
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: wanted to steady your your shooting hand. I know, but
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: I don't think that was I mean, you study it.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: I gotta how to shoot a pistol. I don't know
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: if it was ever like that officially. Maybe it's to
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: keep the recoil from throwing your aim off. Well, I
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: mean I think it's for all that, but I don't
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: know if that was ever the proper way, is what
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: I'm saying. It seems like it's like specifically a TV thing. Yeah,
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: Like Aaron Spelling was like, try this, hold your hold
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: your wrist, yeah, do that from now on. Karl Malden
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: was like, uh, some of the other I mean this
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: training there by all accounts, you send an article from
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: a guy who was actually there. It sounded like some
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: of the most hardcore training you could go through. Yeah.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: This guy named um Andrew Andy Durovich UM. He was
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: a Canadian Hungarian UM guy. He was actually in his
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: thirties when he went through Camp X training and he
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: wrote a book about his experience and he he was
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: a great source of a lot of UM this information
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: of of what it was like to go train there.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: But he was the guy who was saying that you
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: would UM there were. There was not only like daytime maneuvers,
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: there were nighttime maneuvers as well. And while you were there,
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: you were basically training the entire time, like you didn't
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: if you had, you know, a class on um where
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: to kick somebody in the testicles in one building, and
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: then you had another building and outbuilding where you went
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: to go learn how to mess with plastic explosives. You
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: didn't walk from one building to the next building. They
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: gave you an assignment to get to the other building
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: without being seen by you know, this guy who was
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: trying to find you, I think it was. It was. Yeah,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: it was very very well put Chuckfoli. Immersive and apparently
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: the whole thing started off the moment you got there
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: with a welcome reception. Yeah. So they these guys, uh,
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: this particular group that Andy, he went by Andy Daniels
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: that he was with. Uh, like you said, we're Hungarian.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: So they kind of had a little Hungarian spread of
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: food and they made him feel welcome, had Hungarian wine
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: and they all got kind of drunk and they all
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: just thought this was just like a nice thing they
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: were doing. But that was even part of the training
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: because you had to be trained to be able to
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: go undercover and drink with the the enemy and still
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: keep your wits right because and I read actually another
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: account by Andy Darovitch that after he went through Camp
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: X and was trained on a secret mission, he was
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: approached by some of the like a German intelligence officer
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: who was working undercover I think in Cairo, and they
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: were trying to drink each other under the table to
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: get them one another to reveal information. And he said
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: he ended up winning that battle some of the uh,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: some of the German intelligence officers comrades came and got
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: him because he drank him literally under the table. Uh.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: What are some of the things they would do? They
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: would say, oh, I don't know. Um, go to the
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: edge of a cliff and say, all right, you have
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: to jump off of that into the water. Uh, swim
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: back to shore and climb back up from a rope.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: And they get through doing all this and they get
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: to the top and then they say do it again, right,
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: like when they're at their most exhausted. They would push
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: these men, and that there were only men being trained.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: Women did play a part, which we'll get to, but um, yeah,
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: they would push them to their breaking point. And then
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: keep pushing them because they were doing things so important
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: and so convert there. It was survival training. Yeah, And
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: I think the the impression I have also is that
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: they were basically going on the concept of muscle memory,
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: where if you do something enough times, it becomes second
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: nature to you. So they were drilling them and everything
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: they taught them so that you you just did it
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: automatically in any condition. Yeah, you said they always use
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: live mm. Oh. They also requested, uh, a very large
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: see through bullet proof screen so they could just stand
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: there and like fire bullets at these dudes. I didn't
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: get the point of this other than it was probably cool.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: Oh No. I think the point is to to desensitize
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: you too, having a gun pointed and shot at your face,
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: so you know what that feels like, right, But do
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: you need to know what that feels like, because if
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: if you're standing there and somebody shoots you in the face,
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: you're probably gonna be desensitized forever by that, you know, now,
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: I think at the point, I think at the point
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: is uh, I don't know where that came from. Was
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: it's just uh, yeah, just to like, I mean, have
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: you ever had a gun pointed in your face. Well, sure,
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: plenty of times it was never fired. I think, Um,
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: I think the point is just to make them steally
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: their nerves like native steel. Now I got it. And
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: the the dude who who wrote the Camp X official
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: site book, he basically said the reason why they were
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: using live fire was like you, you knew that they
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: weren't going to shoot you, but there was a possibility
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: that you could still dry by accident, and that, you know,
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: it lent itself to the seriousness of your training, but
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: it also kind of made you mad, and and you
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: were you were they were trying to push your buttons
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: and seeing how much you would keep your head and
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: that was kind of along the lines also getting you
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: super drunk to see if you would talk, how how
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: how boastful you were when you were super drunk, or
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: something like that. So they were messing with you psychologically
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: as much as training you physically too. Yeah, And it
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: wasn't just training and like how to how to karate
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: chop the dude, or how to sneak up behind someone
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: and just gingerly strangle them to the ground, although they
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: did all that for sure, Um, they also did uh
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: fake well kind of barely fake um expeditions. They would
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: go out and steal a train and it's not set
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: up like they would steal a train in Canada. Uh.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: And in one case, they stole the train, got on board,
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: everyone was like, do you know how to drive this thing?
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: And everyone said no. They said, well let's get it
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: going anyway. They got it going, We're going down the track,
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: realized it didn't know how to switch it, saw an
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: oncoming train, and all bailed off the train. Luckily they
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: did not collide. They just kind of slowly came to
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: a stop and kind of bumped one another, which is
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: but it really could have gone another way, you know. Yeah,
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: but they would do like, uh, they wouldn't blow up
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: a bridge, but they would set it up with fake
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: explosives as if they were going to blow it up. Uh.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: And occasionally doing all this stuff, they would running foul
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: of the law and get arrested. And then you know,
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: it's it's sort of like, uh, exactly what you would think,
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: like mission impossible or something. Pretty soon someone comes along
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: behind you that says to the officer, they're part of
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: the war effort. You don't need to ask any questions.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: They're coming with me, just forget, forget everything that happened tonight. Yeah,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: do you want your family survived? Well, then you didn't
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: see any of this. Well they even that was where
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: they used their special insider code. Is that correct? Well,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: there was one guy who was arrested. Um, he was
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: caught by police. I'm not quite sure what he was doing. Um,
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: but he had basically undertaken a self appointed mission and
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: had been caught by the real cops. And he said,
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: just get in touch with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: and tell them. I said, s T dash one dash one.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: Remember that was the Mounties code for that camp, Camp X.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: And apparently within a very short time a Mountie official
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: showed up, whisked the guy off and said this didn't
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: have into the to the local police. Yeah, and this well,
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: we also got to keep in mind this was a
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: local cop in Ontario in the nineteen forties, right, so
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: he was probably like, oh, no problem, he wanted no trouble. Right.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: So there were um some pretty interesting people that came
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: through Camp X, both as trainees and instructors. One guy,
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: Lieutenant Colonel Bill Brooker. He served as a commandant of
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: Camp X. He wasn't the first one, but apparently he
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: was the one who had the largest legacy there, and
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: he he was a strict military disciplinarian, but he also
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: was totally cool with unorthodox training methods. Yeah, like breaking
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: into a classroom, uh, shooting guns? Right, and then well,
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: not him, you know himself. Maybe he did. Maybe he
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: played along sending dudes in there with guns to to
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: shoot bullets, live rounds, and then dash out and then
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: come back in and say, all right, well, describe all
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: of these guys, what they look like, what were they wearing,
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: what do they smell like? Yeah, not just survive, but
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: now you need to learn how to keep your head
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: during a shootout. Yeah, And then that he would leave
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: and they would get back to learning how to kick
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: a man in the testicles. Well, speaking of such, Major
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: Dan Fairbaron Uh, Terry thought that was funny. Actually, um,
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: because Jerry didn't have testicles. Nothing funny about it. No,
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: I can't kick her in the testicles. And I got
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: wrecked the other day for the first time, and I
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: don't know, thirty years. It's the worst feeling. There's nothing
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: else like it either, I know. I was trying to
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: tell Emily. I was like, it's such a specific pain
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: that you can't describe it. It's uh, it's indescribable. Well, yeah,
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: it's definitely a unique thing that you just you have
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: to experience it yourself. But luckily for her that will
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: never happen. Oh, I'm sorry that happened to you. That's okay,
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: blame my daughter. Um, I was gonna ask that's how
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: it happens. So fair Bairn was Um. He was a
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: policeman in Shanghai, which that probably means in the nineteen
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: forties you're a tough dude, I would say. Uh. And
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: he was in charge not too long at Camp X
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: of close combat training. But apparently he kind of set
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: the standard for um brutality in battle because his his
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: uh I guess what do you want to call it?
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: His credo or whatever was the nothing is out of bounds,
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: kick a guy and the testicles, throw a chair at him,
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: hot coffee in his face. Um, whatever you have to
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: do to disable and kill this guy as quickly as possible,
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: that's what you should do. And and quietly if you can,
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: Like maybe throwing a chair was not your first step, Like,
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: don't kill him with a tambourine if you can, right,
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: and apparently this guy's thing was again kicking him in
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: the testicles. And then you go for like an orifice, right,
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: you jam your fingers and their ears, their eyes or
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: something like that, or up their nose to just further
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: distract them on top of the pain of being kicked
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: in the testicles, and then you you just had them
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: where you wanted them, which was by the throat. Yeah,
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: there was no Uh, he'd never heard of the words
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: fighting dirty, you know. Reading this, reading that part about
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: Fairburn though, in particular, really drove on me that like
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: these guys were like like these were they were killing people,
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: like people were dying, were being trained to kill people.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: And you know, with the hindsight of history and just
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: being seventy years removed from this stuff and the fact
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: that it's just so fascinating, I don't I don't care.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: Like you said, you're a huge peacenick. It's still super
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: fascinating to learn about. But you realize every once in
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: a while just how removed from reality you are when
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: you're reading about it today, and that, yeah, these guys
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: are being trained to kill and then went on to
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: kill other people. Yeah it was Nazi, so really, you know,
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: but they were still killing human beings. And it really
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: that part drove it home to me. Yeah, I mean
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: it sounds like I think this is the coolest thing ever,
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: So I know what you're talking about. But um, they
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: were Nazi, so I don't feel too bad. Um. Another
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: guy was um Bill Bonnaman. He was uh, he was
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: a guy who he he led a lot of efforts
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: to create the espionage Organization in the US and helped
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: establish Camp X to begin with. And even though he
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: never worked for the CIA, he was one of the
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: the biggest voices kind of lobbying to establish it. He
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: worked for the OSS, the Office of Strategic Services, which
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: I believe came it grew out of the Office of
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: the Coordinator of Information, which is set up to Liai's
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: with the British Security Coordinator. Right. Um. But once they,
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: once the US centered the war, they set up the
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: Office of Strategic Services and they and that became the CIA.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: And while Bill Donovan is just a legend, like even
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: though he didn't work for the CIA, he's he's very
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: much considered the father of the CIA. He was America's
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: first spook. Yeah, and you know, a lot of actually
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: a lot of the graduates. They either went on to
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: further train people or a lot of them did go
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: on to work for the CIA afterward. Yeah. Um, but
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: Gustav Biela was I think my favorite dude. Um. I
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: read up on him and he supposedly was the best
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: that they ever had at Camp X. Yeah. He was
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: French Canadian. As as Grabster puts it, he was an
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: exemplary student of sabotage and resistance coordination. That's a good
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: way to put it, Yeah, which means he was a
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: tough guy. Right. So he parachuted behind German lines in France,
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: landed on a rock and injured his spine. I was like,
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: I just gotta walk it off and continued on. I
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: think that was one of the first things that happened
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: to him. Yeah. He would, uh and this is all
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: always covert, you know, like you said, be behind end
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: the lines, and he would recruit locals and kind of
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: assemble his own little forced him from Navaron Um and
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: like or organized the French resistance and like take these
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: farmers and all of a sudden they're blowing up bridges
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: under his command. Right, do you remember um? In the
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: DV Cooper episode Barbara Dayton yes, who was who was
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: born Robert Dayton during World War Two? That's what Robert
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: Dayton was doing. But I think in like Burma. Really yeah,
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: he was like parachuting behind enemy lines and finding out
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: who was mad at the Japanese and assembling guerrilla armies
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: training them. This is that's what this dude was doing.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: But I think he was doing it in Europe, in France. Yeah. Well,
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: sadly he was captured and um, he was such a
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: tough guy. He never broke. Uh. He was tortured for years, uh,
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: sent to a concentration camp. He never broke, never talked
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: for years. Yeah, and the Nazis were so uh. I
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: mean they wanted to keep him alive because they knew
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: he had the information. And finally the Nazis gave up
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: and executed him, which is very sad into his story.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: But he unusually was executed by firing squad, which apparently
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: the Nazis didn't really do much. They used piano wire
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: and gas um, and apparently the firing squad was a
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: sign of their respect for him. Um oh as a
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: soldier to you know, to take him out quickly. I
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: guess so he Um. That was another thing that jarred
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: me too. I was like, oh wow, this guy did that.
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: He blew up railroads, he assembled guerrilla armies, and then
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: he was captured and executed and I was like, oh, yeah,
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: that really happened too. But you had about I think
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: if you went from Camp X to the theater of
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: war to to die, well, yeah, there were there was
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: apparently there was one guards reading about. I'm not sure
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: if he was trained at Camp X or not, but
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: he was a radar specialist and he was sent behind
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: uh German lines I think in France again as well,
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: to basically to try to infiltrate radar station and check
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: out what radar information that the Germans had, and the
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: the special operations guys who went in with him were
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: under orders to kill that guy rather than allow them
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: to be captured to kill their own guy. And supposedly
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: this guy was aware of it and had a cyanide
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: pill and everything. But this is just one guy. Yeah,
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: I guess if you were at Camp X, like when
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: you went on your mission, they told you you're probably
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: not going to come back. You wanna take a break, Yeah,
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: all right, let's do it, and we'll finish up with
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: a little bit on Hydra radio and the eventual uh
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: fate of Camp X. Y. All right, Charles, are you
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: ready to round this out? Yeah. Earlier we kind of
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: tease that there were some women that did play a
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: part in Camp X and while they were not trained
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: as sabboteurs, they were a part of the war effort. Specifically, Uh,
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: these Canadian women who uh ran well at least helped
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: run a radio station housed at Camp X. I wonder
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: if they would be considered sabbatusas rather than sabboteurs, you know,
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: like a massur in a masseuse. I'll bet I'm right, man.
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: You know, we had someone right in and tell us
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: masseus is offensive. Oh really yeah, massage therapists or nothing. Okay, sorry,
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: massage therapists. Uh. We certainly weren't trying to degrade the
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: profession in any way to go ahead and apologize to
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: the sabbatosa is out there as well. So uh, as
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: we mentioned, there was a radio station, Hydra radio UM
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: and communications were gathering intelligence. Sending intelligence was a big,
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: big part of the war, um uh for the Allies,
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: well for both sides obviously. But you couldn't just build
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: a radio station because equipment was scarce. Uh, everything was
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: scarce during the war, so they kind of cobbled together
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: from private companies and citizens themselves radio station, right, so,
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: and apparently some of the Canadians that they requisition parts
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: to create this radio station, which was codenamed Hydra because
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: of all the antenna that came out top of it.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: They nicknamed it Hydra, and I guess that became its
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: code name. Um. It was a serious state of the
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: art radio station that they put together. Um. But they
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: actually had the people whose radio equipment they requisition come
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: work at Camp X at the at the Project Hydra
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: radio station. You know, there's some hams in there for sure.
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: For sure. You know they kept it clean, they did.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: But this is where the women played a part. These
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: Canadian women basically helped operate Hydra and I think kind
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: of headed it up. And they could not stay there
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: because the barracks weren't equipped, uh for forbid and women
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: to both stay there, So they stayed with local families nearby.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: They were picked up and dropped off for work each
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: day and weren't really a part of the rest of
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: the camp, but really provided a valuable service for communications
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: for Camp X during the war. It kind of reminded
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: me of like, um, the Hidden Figures story. Yeah, for sure.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: You know they operated the rockets machine. Yeah, I looked
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: at that. Did you see the picture of that thing? Yeah?
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: It was it was It basically should have been like
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: Danger Will Robinson. It was huge and clunky, but UH
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: encoded and decoded automatically transmissions that were coming in and
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: out of the hydro radio station. And they weren't they
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: weren't decoding like captured or intercepted UM access radio transmissions.
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: But they could take them and bounce them over to
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: Bletchley Park, Betchley Park Man, that's tough to say, is
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: it Betchley or Bletchley Park? Um, I got that part right,
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: UH for decoding, And apparently they would also relay transmissions
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: from Washington from Roosevelt for UM Winston Churchill to read.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: There's an unknown secret bedroom at Park where Winston Churchill
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: would sleep and he would read transmissions in real time
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: from from UH from Roosevelt. And they were basically strategizing
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: the war through this, and they were these transmissions were
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: going through the hydro radio stations. It played a huge,
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: hugely important role in World War two. That's awesome. So
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: the war finished, and actually before the war was even finished,
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: Camp X closed. It didn't even see through to the
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: end of the war. Close in April, basically because they
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: as ed puts that their work was done. It kind
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: of satisfied its mission. Um, those people needed elsewhere, so
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: they closed up shop. Um. They don't know how many people.
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: How many men went through there, uh, it says because
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: it was also secret, you know, and they kind of
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: destroyed a lot of the records. UM. But you know,
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: it varies from a few hundred to a few thousand,
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: depending on who you're gonna ask. Apparently it was kind
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: of in vogue to um to lie having trained there,
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: How are you going to disprove that sucker can't? The
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: buildings were still there though, like Camp X remained UM.
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: And over the years it was used for various things.
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: I was used in the Cold War, they tried to
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: kind of repurpose it, um, which not a bad idea. No.
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: Then actually they used it to interrogate a defector in
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: the Cold War. Apparently, right after World War Two there
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: was a cipher clerk, a cryptologist named Igor Guezenko. Kuzenko
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: I added an extra syllable, I think, and he left
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: the Soviet Union and headed to Canada, made a lot
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: of info with them. So the Canadians and the Americans
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: both interrogated him at Camp X, the Bannon Camp X building,
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: because it was so secure. Yeah, they went on. The
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: Canadian military took over hydra and they continued to use
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: that during the Cold War. Uh, we'll continue through World
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: War two, um as Japan kind of hung in there,
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: and then eventually in the Cold War. But then by
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: nine nine, of course, all that advanced equipment was no
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: longer advanced. Uh, and so it was decommissioned and sold off. Yeah.
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: Kind of an ignag ignoble. Yeah, and to this thing
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: that had played such a huge role. Did you say
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: that they bulldozed it? Well, no, that was just the
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: hydro station. In the end, they bulldozed what was left
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: of the buildings because they rightly said, you know, there
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: might be some unexploded munitions there. Uh, and that's dangerous,
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: so let's just bulldoze it into Lake Ontario. Is this
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies? Can't you see them doing the hard
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: head just walking away like dusting off his hands, like
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: job well done. You can't see can't see it anymore?
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: So it's fine that there's a saying in the construction business.
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: I can't see it from my house. Oh yeah, yeah,
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: like if you mess something up from my house. That's
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: so construction guy, isn't it. They also have another saying,
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: which is I'm not gonna show up when I say
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: i'm going to, and I'm gonna charge way more than
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: I said I would. That was a little clumsy. So
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: can you imagine though, I mean, this stuff, I guess
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: in theory is still sitting at the bottom of Lake
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: Ontario somewhere. Yeah, we kind of need to explore that.
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: I'm really surprised no one has, you know, I bet
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: just someone has. Yeah, maybe there's a park there. Now,
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: there's a plaque that commemorates It's called in Trepid Park.
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: So William Stevenson, the guy who probably inspired James Bond,
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: apparently after the war, he got into Ham Radio himself
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: and he he used this self proclaimed code name in Trepid,
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: So it's called in Trepid Park after him, and um,
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: there's a plaque it says some crazy stuff went on here,
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: especiically like the boulder they show at the end of
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: Red Dawn, you know, except this is in Canada in
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: Red Dawn because apparently in Michigan or not Michigan is
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: in Colorado. I always thought it was Michigan because of
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: the Wolverines thing. Oh, I think I always thought it
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: was like Oregon or something. No, I'm pretty sure it
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: was Colorado. Yeah, there you have it. They got Jet's
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: dead car. Wait, it wasn't it. Who was the other?
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: Who's the guy who who betrayed them all? Darryl? Darryl.
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: They're in Darryll's dad's car. Man. I was so mad
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: at Darryll, I know, but didn't she just feel for
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: him too at the same time. It's just I was
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: torn and I was really horrible. Yeah. Well, if you
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: want them more about Darryl from Red Dawn or Camp
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: X or anything like that, you should type those words
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: in the search part how stuff works dot Com. Since
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: I said search parts time for a listener, Mayo, I'm
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: gonna call this the subject line that the author himself
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: called it wild inaccuracies in Champagne episode. But I love
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: you anyways, uh dearest Josh and Chuck, Hi, guys, I
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: love your show and all that stuff. As a Champagne professional,
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: though in former Sam Alia. You can just imagine my
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: thrill about the champagne episode. In fact, the house I
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: worked for, uh ren Not was the very first established
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: cha house to ever sell the stuff in se Um. Yeah.
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: I knew that the champagne like experts would find some faults.
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, though, No,
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: not too bad. He even said that we got most
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: of it right. I think this was a she. Oh
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: was it? I think Lacey? So sorry lazy? Um. I
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: guess Lacey could be a guy. Could be a strange
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: name for a guy though maybe so. I know that, Chuck,
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: because I responded to Lacey and said, so you call
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: us out on all this, and you're the brand ambassador
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: for Ruin Art and you don't offer us free champagne.
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: You probably have some coming, right, Yep, we got some coming.
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: I got some some champagne coming. Well, you can have
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: it all, buddy. Awesome. Um, So, first and foremost, guys,
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: you've got a lot of it, correct, Chuck, Your accent
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: is pretty good. You basically nailed reams, Josh. I was
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: so glad you love the bubbly as much as I do.
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: That counts for a lot, Chuck, serious disappointment here because
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: you have always been my favorite best laugh ever. Guess
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: it's Josh, now it is. It is true, Chuck, you
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: have a pretty great laugh. This is an emotional role
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: or coaster. I gotta tell you. The most glaring and
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: hilarious of all mistakes, though, is the whole Champagne grapes.
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: By the way, there's seven, not three, must get crushed
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: by feet. Champagne does not get pressed by feet, not
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: at all. And actually she's wrong there. That is not
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: true because I looked it up and there are still
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: some houses that crushed some champagne by feet. That's what
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: I'm saying. I was spending my time focused on getting
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: free champagne rather than correcting her. But I I remember
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: seeing that too. It's not like we just made that upright,
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: she said. She double checked with her chef Dekav and
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: he said, that's so ridiculous. Press machine is mandatory. I
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: don't know what accent that was that was not. Below
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: is a link from the official Champagne website For more info,
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: ah you can also look up press cookar on YouTube. Also,
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: essentially no one riddles by hand these days. Talk about
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: carpal tunnel syndrome. Most houses large and small use a
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: gyro pellette, only a few tiny producers hand real, a
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: few coveys or large formats. Um. Finally, I doubt you
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: can find a decent champagne for under twenty or sorry
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: for twenty year under. I'd say it starts at forty whatever. Otherwise,
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: it was a pretty darn good and entertaining episode. As always,
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: thanks for spreading mostly accurate information about my favorite subject
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: XO XO Lacey. Well, thanks for that, Lacey, And we're
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: looking forward to this champagne, aren't we, Chuck, Yeah, that's
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: Lacey Burke and um, she's in uh New York And
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: like you said, it's a brand ambassador for Maison Runar
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: and also heard back I forgot to shout it out
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: my buddy Robbie and his launch Vine and Pierce and
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: Meer Wines. He was like, did you shout me out
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: because getting some orders that. I was like, oh yeah,
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: I love to hear that. And he said we did
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: a pretty good job too. So for these very specific,
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: very complex industries, if we get right, I feel like
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: we've done her jobs. Um, I want to say somebody
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: else combined the Champagne episode and the food fads up
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: his Owdan rode in to say, you guys should try
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: champagne jello shots. Ah, that's jellow shot. I might try. Okay, there,
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: now we've got it. Where this is going to start
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: you on the champagne train. If you want to get
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: in touch with us, especially if you want to send
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: us free champagne, free wine, something like that, you can
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: tweet to us where s y s K podcast. You
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: can join us on Facebook dot com, slash stuff you
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: Should Know. You can send us an email to stuff
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: Podcast at how stuff Works dot com and has always
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: joined us at our home on the web, Stuff you
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: Should Know dot com for more on this and thousands
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: of other topics because at how stuff Works dot com