The only remaining
building from
Camp - X
This building can be found at the Whitby (Paw) Humane Society which is located exactly 5 km north of Highway # 2 (Dundas St.) on Thickson Road in the Town of Whitby, Ontario, Canada.
It was donated to the Humane Society by Muriel Sissons, a cat lover, back in the early 1970's. The town of Whitby offered the buildings to anyone wishing one for $1.00! The catch was that you would have to move the building immediately from the site of Camp -X. Muriel paid for the building to be moved to its new home and it was lucky for Canada that she did. This building, while almost sixty years old, is in remarkable condition. The interior, in some parts of the building, is exactly as it was when the agents were housed there during their training. 6 x 9 foot cubicles with a single window in each room. Even the electrical fixtures and wiring is original.
I found this building in 1977 by accident. A man whom I was interviewing had redecorated his recreation room with material taken from the interior of the Camp - X buildings. He just happened to mention to me that he thought that one of the buildings had been moved intact. I started investigating and eventually found the building. I called my research associate, Alan Longfield, and together we drove to the site; and a remarkable site it was. As we pulled into the driveway this incredible building was staring us straight in the face.
From exhaustive research using approximately 60 different pictures of the buildings both war time and after, and with the help of many agents trained at Camp - X, we were able to categorically identify this building as the top portion of the western 'H' building. (Of which there were two) It is in this part of the 'H' building where the hundreds of Camp - X secret agents were housed. In other words, this was known as the 'agents barracks'. The building housed approximately 12 agents for a period of anywhere between eight to twelve weeks.
In September of 2001, while at a book signing, we discovered that there are in fact three more buildings from Camp X standing today. They are the three pieces which make up the eastern 'H' building which housed the Camp officers. The buildings were purchased by a man for $100 each and as he said, "were made from the finest grain of wood."
The reason that it wasn't noticed previously is that unlike the Sissons building which was moved as one piece, these buildings were moved by taking the roof off and taking down the sides in pieces. The buildings were relocated to another town and this summer we will be doing forensic testing in order to determine whether or not these buildings can be returned to the site of Camp X as part of the Camp X museum.
Lynn Philip Hodgson
