WW II: A Battle Fought at Home and Abroad

After the United States formally entered World War II, the Military Intelligence Service began two top-secret programs at Fort Hunt, MIS-Y and MIS-X, as the nation fought both at home and on foreign soil. Under MIS-Y, Fort Hunt served as the nation’s primary Joint Interrogation Center, known at the time only as P.O. Box 1142, where Army and Navy personnel questioned Axis prisoners-of-war who held strategic or technical information. Roughly 4,000 prisoners were interrogated there between 1942 and 1946. The War Department designated the camps Temporary Detention Centers or Detained Interrogation Centers rather than POW camps because the Geneva Convention of 1929 granted rights and privileges to prisoners-of-war that would interfere with interrogation strategies. Under MIS-X, Fort Hunt personnel sent secret escape devices concealed in humanitarian aid or care packages to American prisoners-of-war in Europe. The operation was so secret that even the fort commander did not know of it; only the President, a few top officials, and limited staff were aware. American prisoners-of-war were alerted in advance through coded letters, and the packages could contain a tiny compass hidden in a button, maps or money concealed in a checkerboard, or a radio transmitter placed in the heel of a new pair of shoes. The Battery Commander’s Station at Fort Hunt, completed in August 1901, had earlier served as the nerve center of fort operations, where personnel used range-finding and sighting equipment to detect approaching enemy ships and relay target coordinates to adjacent gun batteries.

Fort Hunt, Virginia · United States