大象传媒

A Day in the Life Of A Secret Agent

Chapter 1
By Inside Camp-X author Lynn Philip Hodgson

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to look through the eyes of a secret agent during World War II? Well, I have been lucky enough to do exactly that.

During my research of the 鈥榯op secret鈥� spy school, 鈥楥amp-X鈥�, I had the pleasure to meet a man named Andrew (Andy) Durovecz, non-de guerre, Andy Daniels. Andy was much different from other secret agents as he was in his thirties when he left Camp-X for his secret mission behind enemy lines. I mention this because by the age of thirty, most of us have matured to the point that we recognise danger and fear whereas a person in their early twenties, knows no fear. This of course is why young people of the age of 19 or 20 are selected for dangerous missions.

Imagine being told at such a young age that you have a 50/50 chance of surviving your mission and this would depend on how well you listened and learned from your instructors!

On a cold November day in 1977, I was able to convince Andy to return with me to those windswept fields of Camp-X. There, reminiscences of life at Camp-X came back to Andy like being hit by a bolt of lightning.

Andy Daniels sat silently in the hollow shell of the Halifax Bomber, oblivious to what was going on around him. The flashing red light beside the open drop chute was all he could see. The others with him were equally quiet.

He took another sip from his flask of rum while he stared at the light, which constantly flashed in his face, wondering how soon would it turn green? At that moment he had no idea where he was, only that soon he would drop through that chute and into the unknown. What would be waiting for him when he reached the ground? Had the enemy been tipped off about his arrival? Would the Gestapo be waiting for him when he landed? He took another sip from his flask and stared at the flashing light...鈥︹��.

Andy thought back to the day when he had sat in the shade of a tree trying to escape a June heat wave at Camp Borden, Ontario. A corporal came running in his direction. 鈥淧rivate, the Commanding Officer would like to see you,鈥� the corporal said. Andy went to the CO who ordered him to report to the Canadian National Exhibition Grounds in Toronto, a staging area for soldiers about to be shipped overseas.

Once there, eight other Hungarian/Canadian boys, all of whom he recognized, joined Andy. They were all packed into an army Jeep, and then later into a civilian car, and in less than two hours, they arrived at Camp-X. Of course, Andy had no idea where or what this place was. All he knew was that they were in a secluded, secret Camp.

As Andy and the others stepped into the building to which they had been directed, he immediately knew where their mission would take them. The reception room had been converted into their Hungarian 鈥渉omeland鈥� complete with food, folk art pieces, and wine.
Training started that first night - drinking good Hungarian wine! Naturally, the young recruits did not look upon this as a training exercise but more as a reception or a bit of R & R before their actual training would begin. Their trainers, however, certainly took it more seriously. This was the very purpose of the exercise: to learn to be able to drink as much as was possible and still hold your tongue. Some months later this training paid off, as will become apparent as Andy鈥檚 story continues to unfold.

Training went on day and night. Daytime instruction dealt with the basic skills; then, as the trainees advanced, nighttime instructions were added. The training was intensive, to say the least. Every minute of the day was filled. The agents were kept either running or crawling; they seldom walked anywhere. They might be either silently crawling up to a target or stealing away from it. The same exercise was repeated over and over until it was pounded into them and became an integral part of their nervous systems, until each reaction was so automatic that it became a sixth sense.

鈥淲e had to go into a dark room in the old Sinclair farmhouse where we would find a bag of gun parts. Still in the dark, we had to put them together and come out shooting.鈥�
An obstacle course was constructed through which the agents suffered the most rigorous and gruelling instruction. Specialty equipment was often received from American manufacturers, occasionally obtained with the direct intervention of President Roosevelt. Corning Glass received a request for, and subsequently provided, a sheet of bullet-proof glass some six feet high and nine feet wide. Agents would stand behind this glass while live ammunition was fired directly at them from short range.

One might wonder why it was so important to the agent in the field as well as the guard responsible for guarding the Camp to both be trained in all of these procedures. Whether the agent was attempting to 鈥渋nfiltrate鈥� the Camp, or the guard was trying to prevent him from doing so, it was beneficial to both to understand the actions of the other. One only need read the following quote from Andy (Durovecz) Daniels鈥� book, My Secret Mission, to see why.

鈥淚 was questioned by the Gestapo as well. Once again I had to describe the methods and locations of my training, but I told them no more than I had told the Hungarians. Since I had come through Slovakia, they too tried to discover, by fair means or foul, whether I was not a 鈥淏olshie鈥� and a Soviet agent, giving me many a beating in the process. What they really wanted to know were the intentions of the British concerning Hungary. Where, and in which direction would the British carry out a major attack on the Balkans? How many British soldiers and airmen were being prepared for action in Hungary? I could honestly say I didn鈥檛 know.

鈥淥nce, while questioning me, the Gestapo suddenly started talking about Camp-X! Where was it? What kind of training took place there? They asked me much that I really did not know. We did not even know at that time about the code name, 鈥淐amp-X鈥�; the people around Whitby and Oshawa had merely called it 鈥渢he secret military camp.鈥� This showed how well informed the Abwehr (the German Military Intelligence) were; they even knew the code name. But they did not bother me much about this, perhaps because they knew no more, perhaps because my demeanour suggested it really was news to me.鈥�

My old friend Andy was right. As indicated previously, every intelligence agency had a name for Camp-X, but 鈥淐amp-X鈥� itself was not one of them. The name 鈥淐amp-X鈥� was given by the locals at the time of its construction when they first became aware of the mysterious goings on behind the fences. Could it be that the German intelligence agents got so close to Camp-X that they believed the actual name of the Camp to be 鈥淐amp-X鈥� because the locals living in the surrounding area referred to it as such?

It is not unrealistic that the Germans were aware of Camp-X. We now know that German records captured by the Allies at the end of the War clearly indicate that the Germans were aware of every aspect of the English Camp, Beaulieu, right down to the name of Lord Montagu鈥檚 dog. The Montagu family owned the Beaulieu Estate.

Merv Allin recalled working in his brother鈥檚 field, which was on the east side of Thornton Road. He hid in the dense grass by the side of the road and watched the agents down by the lake placing trip wires across the road. As a car would come down the road, it would set the charge off as it passed by. Not enough of a charge was placed to do any damage, but enough to illustrate what could happen if this were done in a real scenario and how easy it would be to blow up the car and its occupants.

At the end of a rigorous day of training, the agent would return, totally exhausted, to his room for some relaxation. Upon entering, he might notice that something was missing or misplaced. This taught him the extreme importance of observation. A mental note of the situation was recorded for future reference should it ever become an issue in a future training lecture.

In the morning, very tough instructors, the majority of whom were from England, led exercises. Andy remembered one in particular, a very proud Scot who always wore his kilt. Another, who had already served in Europe, had a limp but was a bright, wise, and clever instructor.
The Scot instructor once said, 鈥淚鈥檓 going to go to Churchill and tell him to give us one hundred Hungarians and one hundred Scots and together we are going to ---- Hitler.鈥� (Author鈥檚 note: This instructor was later identified as Hamish Pelham Burn). He was truly fond of the Hungarian lads. Andy thought that they and the instructors shared a peasant background, which made them able to relate to each other. There was also some mysterious 鈥渟eventh sense鈥� which bound them. The Hungarians were believed to be ideally suited for the Secret Service because they demonstrated a relentless determination, great stamina and held strong political beliefs.

After the war, Colonel F. H. Walter, O.B.E. (Order of the British Empire), said; 鈥淚t was only at a later stage that it was realized by Special Forces and by the British military authorities generally that the national resistance movements in themselves were powerful potential military forces. From that time forward the SF agent ceased to be merely a saboteur and became, in addition, a liaison officer and an expert in weapon training, in supply, in tactics and in leadership.鈥�

Andy and his mates were recruited and trained for guerrilla warfare. At the Camp, the emphasis for them was on tough physical training. A typical manoeuvre might entail running full out and jumping off the towering cliffs to the lake below, then climbing back up from the shore to the highest point of the cliff by rope. Only nine of the original twenty-two completed the rigorous training and went on to the next phase. The intelligence training, initiated at Camp-X and continued in England, prepared them not as spies but as agents.

(Author鈥檚 Note: During my investigation of Camp-X, I had been told that one of the reasons the Whitby/Oshawa shoreline of Lake Ontario had been chosen was due to the uncanny similarity of the beach front to the shores of France, gradually sloping eastward toward the thirty foot high cliffs. In a later interview with Tommy Drew-Brook, head of the Canadian Division of the BSC, I learned that this, in fact, had nothing to do with the decision to pick this particular site. The coincidence of the similarity did make it extremely convenient, however.)

Live ammunition was used in all practices. No one shot directly at the agents-in-training of course, but the stress of knowing that live ammunition was being fired your way added to the sense of realism and reinforced the seriousness of the exercise. It was survival training in its truest sense. It taught the agent to keep his head, but at the same time made him angry and determined.

The agent-in-training also concentrated on demolition; factories, railways, bridges, and locomotives were frequent and logical targets. On one such exercise, Andy and his fellow agents were in the Toronto railway yards (Union Station) where they decided to 鈥榮teal鈥� a locomotive. One of the men asked the others whether anyone knew how to operate it and the answer was unanimously, 鈥渘o.鈥� After careful consideration, and in spite of this minor detail, the decision was made to proceed anyway. They managed to get the train moving down the line, but could not figure out how to switch it. Soon they realized that there was a train approaching them on what appeared to be the same line. They quickly jumped from the train and ran as far and as fast as they could to avoid the explosion from the expected inevitable collision. But the train carried on, slowing down, until it gently bumped another train and came to an uneventful stop. The agents, upon returning to the Camp, informed their instructor what had transpired. The proper authorities were immediately dispatched to Union Station to explain to the manager just what had happened and to instruct him to consider the damage as the Station鈥檚 part of the war effort. He received no further explanation.

As long as these exercises were properly executed and no one was injured, there was never any objection from the Camp instructors. There was always someone available from the Camp to serve as 鈥渄amage control鈥� after the agents had left the scene, and the agents knew that the Camp authorities would always cover their tracks.

Of necessity, the Camp had devised quite a unique plan of action in the event that one of their agents got into trouble. It was essential that the Camp be able to locate and retrieve the agent, as well as to satisfactorily explain his actions.

On one particular training mission, one of the trainees was apprehended and the police were called in. When the agent was confronted with handcuffs, he requested that the RCMP be contacted with a message: 鈥淪25-1-1鈥� (the secret RCMP file number for Camp-X). Inquisitively but reluctantly, the policeman phoned and relayed the message. Within fifteen minutes, an RCMP officer was on the scene and told the policeman that he would take care of the incident and that if the police had any further questions they should contact Inspector McClellan at RCMP H.Q. Within the hour, the agent found himself back at Camp-X.

The agents 鈥渉it鈥� many local targets, including General Motors in Oshawa, the port of Toronto, and especially the Toronto/Montreal rail line. Andy could not recall the number of times they simulated blow ups of trains using fake plastique (RDX) explosive developed by the BSC at Ajax (DIL) and Camp-X.

Agents learned that derailment caused the enemy some headaches, but could be repaired in a few hours and really proved to be little more than a nuisance. A truly effective delay could be caused by taking out a site such as a bridge or a viaduct, which could potentially take days to reconstruct, and required a greater number of personnel to complete, a recurring objective in the training program.

Killing the enemy was in order when in a kill-or-be-killed situation; otherwise, it was far better to merely injure a man. By doing so, other able-bodied men were kept from entering combat, as their services would be required in various support tasks to assist in tending to the wounded personnel. Instead of taking out only one of the enemy, several could be removed from combat at the same time.

To be able to shoot a target with a revolver or a pistol from a distance of twenty feet required much practice and training, most of which was carried out in the underground firing range. There was not a ray of light, not even the light of the moon. Shooting had to be by instinct, by sensing movements, even perhaps utilizing the sense of smell. There was no option - the agent must hit the target, he HAD to. He was trained, grilled, almost tortured mentally until he hit that target. That was all there was. It was just part of the training.

鈥淭he night manoeuvres were bloody awful,鈥� recounted Andy Daniels. The agents would be taken by Jeep to the area around Port Perry, Orono, or perhaps to Rice Lake, near Peterborough. They would be given a map and compass, told their target and left to find their way back, completing the mission. 鈥淢eanwhile, the instructors would sit playing cards, or sipping a beer, waiting.鈥�

When the agents arrived on target, hours later, they would be loaded into a Jeep, tired and hungry, and would head for Camp. As often as not, though, they would not reach Camp, but would be told that there was a new 鈥榮ituation鈥�, be given their new targets and they would stagger off in all directions to fulfill yet another mission.

On night manoeuvres, they would sometimes land a little Tiger Moth in the open field on the far side of Corbett Creek near Camp-X. The trainees would then have to scramble through the brush and be on board in less than a minute. This particular training manoeuvres began for Andy when he was selected to practice entering enemy territory as a secret agent. The rest of the group was to be resistance members. Andy was taken to Oshawa airport and put in a Tiger Moth, which landed a few feet outside the Camp fence directly across Corbett Creek from the buildings. The receiving party, other agents in the role of resistance fighters, was waiting for him, and together they would 鈥榠nfiltrate鈥� the Camp. The Camp guards were awaiting them but the 鈥楶artisans鈥� eluded them by crawling to their target, one of the Camp buildings, and laying a charge. Andy and the others retreated having succeeded in their mission.

Continued Chapter 2.....

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