Secrets of Camp Greentop, the US Spy Hideaway for OSS Recruits

In a quiet corner of Maryland, the secrets of spies still echo and a gravel path snakes through a verdant forest to reveal Catoctin Mountain Park’s Camp B-2 - aka Camp Greentop - one of America’s first schools for spies and saboteurs.

The former spy training ground in the northeastern US is now rented out to large groups for overnight stays and a hike through the lush woods is a stroll through history.

Camp Greentop OSS Training Camp

The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) occupied leafy Camp Greentop in 1942 and the tentacles of the spy camp stretched deep into wooded areas that later became the presidential retreat, Camp David. The sprawling 5,770-acre park was an ideal location for a paramilitary training school.

Camp Greentop’s revolutionary nature sprang from its eclectic recruits - Ivy League scholars, artists, crafty swindlers, expert forgers, and battle-hardened military personnel - all steered by iconic WWI hero General William ‘Wild Bill’ Donovan, a man with a talent for ‘dirty tricks’ and a passion for baseball grenades, exploding flour, and other sneaky spy gadgets.

Donovan’s most famous OSS officers included chef Julia Child, actor Sterling Hayden, and the remarkable baseball player Moe Berg who spoke 10 languages including German and Japanese. Donovan’s OSS officers became known as the ‘Glorious Amateurs’ who helped the Allies win the Second World War. Later, from the ashes of the OSS, the CIA and US Special Forces were born.

The OSS’s primary role was to engage in sabotage, subversion, and propaganda while synchronizing espionage operations behind enemy lines for the US Armed Forces. Much like the ungentlemanly spies trained in Britain and at Canada’s Camp X, Camp Greentop’s operatives ‘set Europe ablaze’ behind enemy lines.

Unconventional and ‘ungentlemanly’ warfare

By April 1942 - four months after the US entered ​​WWII - Camp Greentop was transformed into a mock warzone with an obstacle course and target ranges for small arms, grenades, and mortars. The former camp for disabled children was now a commando-style training facility with an OSS ‘Trainasium’ Obstacle Course.

There was also a ‘Demolition Trail’ walking path. As OSS trainees traveled back and forth between Camp Greentop and nearby Camp Round Meadow, instructors randomly set off small explosive charges. Students quickly learned to stay low and keep their heads down.
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