Camp Peary is a military reservation in York County near Williamsburg, Virginia. It is now home to the United States Department of Defense's Armed Forces Experimental Training Activity. Camp Peary has about 9,275 acres (38 km²) of land, of which about 8,000 acres are unimproved or only partially improved. The 100 acre (400,000 m²) Biglers Millpond occupies the site adjacent to the York River.

World War II use

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During World War II, the U.S. Navy took over a large area in York County which became known as Camp Peary for use as a Seabee training base and stockade for special German prisoners-of-war. The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway extended a spur track to the site from Williamsburg and established Magruder Station there.

The prisoners-of-war were not just an ordinary sort, but rather, many came from captured German submarine and ship crews which the Germans had thought lost-at-sea with crews presumed dead. Thus, extra secrecy was necessary. As part of the process of converting the property to a military reservation, all residents of the entire towns of Magruder and Bigler's Mill had to vacate. The town of Magruder, a traditionally African-American community established after the American Civil War, had been named for Confederate General John B. Magruder, and a civil war field hospital had occupied the site of Bigler's Mill near the York River. Although the graves in the church cemetery were not moved, many of the residents and the local Mount Gilead Baptist Church were relocated to the Grove community, located on U.S. Route 60 in adjacent James City County a few miles away, where a number of displaced residents from Lackey had earlier relocated under similar circumstances during World War I when what is now the Naval Weapons Station Yorktown was created.

Post-war, new missions

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Turned loose by the Navy in 1946, Camp Peary was a Virginia state forestry and game reserve for five years. Then, in 1951, the Navy returned to the property and announced it closed to the public. It has been that way ever since.

Camp Peary later became well-known as "The Farm", a training facility for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), although this has never been formally acknowledged by the U.S. Government. An airport with a 5000 foot runway was added to the facility near the site of Bigler's Mill. In 1972, the Virginia Gazette newspaper of Williamsburg reported that CIA agents were trained as assassins on base. The CIA replied that was nonsense. "None of its people," the agency said, "had ever been trained or used as assassins."

The roads and many structures of Magruder and Bigler's Mill are apparently still there and many are occupied. "Porto Bello", the hunting lodge of Lord Dunmore, last royal governor of Virginia, still stands on the grounds of Camp Peary. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Trivia

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• Many of the German prisoners-of-war who were secretly kept at Camp Peary during World War II did local farm work, and some liked the area so much that they remained and applied to become U.S. citizens afterwards.

• The town of Magruder is considered one of the Lost counties, cities and towns of Virginia. This, as well as the current reported uses of Camp Peary, may be somewhat ironic as the town's namesake, General "Prince John" Magruder, was considered a master of deceptive tactics in the Confederate Army.

• While most of Camp Peary is in York County, a small portion of the large military reservation near Skimino Creek at the western edge is actually located in James City County.

External links

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• Eyeballing the CIA Camp Peary Special Training Center "The Farm"
• Virginian-Pilot newspaper story from 1994
• Virginian-Pilot newspaper story from 1996

Geography of Virginia | History of Virginia | York County, Virginia

Camp Peary