What pivotal role could a pair of small towns in southern Ontario have possibly played in dramatically shifting the tide of D-Day and thereby the outcome of World War 2? The story of Camp X is a striking and fascinating one, starting with its very construction, cloaked in absolute secrecy, and continuing up to today with the camp’s continuing influence on global special operations practices and the famous James Bond stories.
Lynn Philip Hodgson is an author and historian and arguably the world’s leading living expert on Camp X, the mysterious training centre whose construction was ordered by Winston Churchill in the very early days of WW2. In its time, the camp trained agents for J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI, high-level British Special Operations divisions (including James Bond author Ian Fleming,) and untold numbers of citizens-turned-spies plucked from communities around the GTA.
In this episode, we go deep into the origin story, the outcomes, the local influence on the James Bond stories, and how locals trained as saboteurs slowed the advance of the Nazis toward Normandy. Local landmarks such as the Genosha Hotel, Alger Press building and many other recognizable spots in Oshawa figure prominently into the storytelling here, and locals will be interested to hear it all.
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