SPY COMBAT TENETS OF WWII

In early 1942, the first covert agents of the OSS began training at Camp X near Toronto, Canada. Many more OSS spy schools for advanced intelligence training soon followed. Their Spy Combat Training was developed and taught by William E. Fairbairn, a former senior British official of the Shanghai China police. His was a method of fighting that combined the Chinese martial arts, jiu-jitsu, and basic street brawling. It was first called Gutter-fighting but later given the more respectable name of the Fairbairn Protocol. Fairbairn also designed a knife for use use by covert agents called the OSS Stiletto. Agents were trained to do what was necessary to survive. Firearms, explosives, edged and improvised weapons-as well as the empty hand-were all requisites for every OSS agent. And it was because of these skills that they were able to function and survive, alone, behind enemy lines. See more