The Escape Factory: The Story of Mis-X

By Lloyd R. Shoemaker

Book Overview

A look at the masterminds behind some of World War II's greatest escapes discusses the master counterfeiters and engineers who supplied people in Europe and Asia with false documents, coded messages,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312925727
• ISBN13: 9780312925727
• Release Date: January 1992
• Publisher: St Martins Pr
• Length: 251 Pages
• Weight: 0.34 lbs.
• Dimensions: 6.8" x 0.8" x 4.3"

Customer Reviews

Old Secrets Revealed

The `Foreword' explains the origin of MI-9, the agency who trained armed forces how to behave if captured, and how to send secret messages from prison camps. Later they helped to create MIS-X for American forces. Their mission was to conceal maps, cameras, and radio sets in innocent objects for prisoners of war. Today no records of MIS-X exist (p.xiii); they were all destroyed after the end of WW II. But a few were able to recall details to recreate this history. Three years after WW II ended they could not locate this information for the impending Korean War (p.2). Fort Hunt was set up close to Washington as an interrogation camp for enemy prisoners. This operation had the highest secrecy possible (p.15), greater than the A-bomb project (p.20). Chapter 4 explains the fictitious charity groups and the parcels sent to POWs. The Post Office cooperated (p.31); so did the Ration Board and manufacturers (p.32). Once a POW guard accepted a bribe, he could be blackmailed to provide information (p.49). Red Cross parcels prevented starvation (p.54). The dollar figures date this book. You could travel from Washington to Cincinnati overnight by rail (p.105). There are no details on the four items needed for a transmitter (p.104). Detailed maps were hidden in a pack of playing cards (p.110). Chapter 13 tells how pistols were smuggled into Oflag 64. The planned break-out and rescue by B-17s was canceled as too risky. There was a danger in buying more than one camera (p.132). Germany banned radios for Allied POWs; America gave radios to German POWs for their education (p.159). Fliers had to carry pistols now for protection against civilians (p.161). Colonel Spivey asked for bombing missions so he could determine the reason for high losses. Gunners were ignoring their gunsights (p.190)! A smuggled German-lettered typewriter was used to forge passes and IDs (p.191). As Germany was losing the war there were threats to murder the POWs (p.193). Shipments stopped in Nov 1944 because they expected the war to end soon, the POW camps were well-stocked, and German transportation was ruined. In Aug 1945 they were ordered to destroy all records. Food items went to the Salvation Army, clothes and games to Walter Reed. [If this story skimps at times its because there were no written records.] The `Afterword' explains the origins of this book. He found the current location of the MIS-X Pentagon papers. But they were destroyed by a fire (p.213). Little is known about MIS-X activities in the Pacific theater. Unlike Europe, a Caucasian could not hide among Asian people, he had to stay hidden. Japan mistreated POWs even after being warned (p.219).

What happened at Ft Hunt?

This book is a must read for those of us touched by Ft Hunt in some way. Also WW II and history buffs. I grew up very close to Ft Hunt, and spent literally hundreds and hundreds of childhood hours there, riding bikes, exploring the fortifications, building dams on the little creeks, hiking the bridle trail (back when you could rent horses at the stables at the end of what's now Elkins Rd) and discovering all of its secret areas. Originally all of the buildings and fortifications in the area were secure, firmly boarded up with very stout 2x6's or 2x8's. But the "big" kids would find ways to break into these areas, and then we would all discover the remnants of what had been left behind when the military had given Ft Hunt to the National Park Service for recreational use.The scenario was typically, the big kids would manage to pry a couple of the boards from a doorway. We "little" kids would come upon the opened doorway usually not more than about a day later, and of course be very excited to explore new areas...this was like Dungeons and Dragons but for real, where the (mostly) underground rooms were very intriguing. There were rumors of crates of rifles and even a secret tunnel under the Potomac to Ft Washington that we searched for relentlessly.At the time Ft Hunt still had its original road system, and several large two story frame houses that had been officers' quarters. And there were all of the other buildings to house the facilities of a small military outpost. But no area was sacred from tenacious and unsupervised youths in search of adventure. I brought home all kinds of things, like alarm buzzers, gas masks, and old electrical fixtures. I even brought home a baby skunk whose family I found living behind the concrete steps that led up to a one-story frame building we used to call the "schoolhouse". The skunk is another story though. At some point boards were removed from the schoolhouse doorway and very soon thereafter we little kids found the breach. The schoolhouse contained a treasure unbelievable to a 10 year old's eyes. Looting was in season! There were all manner of research books (a complete set of Britannica from 1893), neat equipment, like a full Fairchild stereoscope and air photos, 35mm films, etc. Much to my parents chagrin, I began carting home as much as I could. My excuse for stealing? Well, all this stuff was abandoned, and if I didn't take it, the next guy would. If only I knew what the real treasure was at the time! This was definitely some the stuff used in the MIS-X operation.After the schoolhouse door was breached, it couldn't have been more than a couple of days, a bulldozer came, pushed the schoolhouse into a pile, and it was torched. (This happened in about 1960, which disputes the claims that all "evidence" was destroyed within the decade of the 1940's.) In all of our time having our great adventures, we had never seen any action taken over anything, but the schoolhouse was different. It happ

A first American view

One of the first American views of the MIS-X program. Previously the British have written about their experiences from the MI-9 and MI-19 perspective. Much of the work of this unit has been still kept classified. There was some unit activity in Southeast Asia and elsewhere in Japanese controlled POW camps. My grandfather was one of the unit's commanders and later CO of Fort Hunt at the end of the war.

Useful but incomplete history of a Super Secret Activity

MIS-X was the branch of U.S. Army G-2 which was in charge of furnishing escape aids and aiding the active escape measures of U.S. service personnel captured by the enemy in aWW II and kept in POW camps. The "ratlines" or escape networks were often run in cooperation with the British agency MIS-9 (cf M.R.D. Foote's book MIS-9). As in other cases the British were the "big brothers" who taught our clandestine operators. This was as much true of the brotherhood of the British SOE and the United State's OSS as the brotherhood of MIS-9 and MIS-X. Why the operations of the E and E agencies required such highly kept secrecy, lasting in this country until the last ten years, was the necessity for the Germans not having even a hint of the special equipment smuggled in via Red Cross relief packages, all unknowingly by the latter of course, nor could the Germans be allowed to penetrate the "ratlines". Of course, the latter did happen, with unfortunate results to our side but they never knew of MIS-X. After the war ended the headquarters of MIS-X which was colocated with the POW interrogation facilities at Fort Hunt, Va, was razed to the ground and plowed under and the heavy non-destructible equipment shipped to salvage yards and junked (presses, etc) and the soft goods such as escape checkerboards and radios concealed in baseballs were all to be destroyed. Five years later when the Korean War broke out, the institutional memory was gone. A few heavily sanitized but still classified documents held in outside files ended up in the Suitland facility of the Federal Records Office but few knew what they meant and they did not talk. Compared to the Manhattan Project or the breaking of codes this project was a ten compared to their eight. Although most of the WW II prisoners in contact with MIS E & E (both services) were air personnel the agency was part of the Army Chief of Staff's G-2, Intelligence, not Army Air Corps intelligence. Thus the individuals assigned to MIS were from many branches of the Army. Shoemaker himself spent most of his service time at Fort Hunt in support and development. His book is mostly from memory with the aid of some of the highly chopped up documents. The story in this account is excellent for the war againt Germany. It is incomplete and inaccurate for the war against Japan. First, the Japanese were not interested in taking care of prisoners except where they could be made to work, second, there was no place to go if you did escape, except in the Phillipines, and third, MIS-X did not operate in the SW Pacific or Central Pacific theatres and most of the CBI Theatre was either British responsibility or uncovered. In China the MIS-X operated independently. For an account by the man in charge of that unit see the recent work by Wichtrich, [u]MIS-X: Top Secret[/u]. (also on this site) Lastly, the "jungle living" and other courses given to personnel shot down in the tropical areas were given