Today, Fort Hunt Park is a nice place to enjoy nature and the company of others. But did you know that during the 1940s, it was the headquarters of a top secret escape and evasion operation?
Intelligence officers at Fort Hunt communicated with Allied prisoners of war using coded letters. Packages from Fort Hunt containing tools for escape from Axis captivity were sent to Allied prisoners under the guise of humanitarian charity.
The idea for this project came from the United Kingdom. In May of 1940, Germany launched a devastating invasion of western Europe. By July, Germany had captured France, Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands. The United Kingdom was the only nation left to oppose Hitler's conquest of Europe.
British military leaders knew they needed to use unconventional thinking to win the war. In February 1940, they hired Christopher Clayton Hutton. Hutton had been working in the film industry and decided to apply for unspecified war work. During an interview, Hutton explained that his interest in show business began when he was nineteen. At that age, Hutton met a famous escape artist named Harry Houdini. Hutton bet Houdini that Houdini could not escape from a prespecified wooden crate. Houdini won the bet by bribing the crate's manufacturers to build it so he could escape.
The British military tasked Hutton with devising ways for captured personnel to escape Axis captivity. Like Houdini, Hutton used tricks. He found clever ways to hide compasses and maps into everyday items that could be sent to prisoners.
The United States entered World War II in 1941. Later, the military started MIS-X, a top secret organization at Fort Hunt. MIS-X used Hutton's tricks to help American prisoners, too. Together, these secret American and British operations helped the Allies win the war.
Learn more about escape, evasion and Fort Hunt during World War II: https://librarycalendar.fairfaxcounty.gov/event/16418602
