Thread by @DavidCranmerUn1

Down on 'The Farm': Learning How to Spy for the CIA - The Washington Post
Like a longtime neighbor who keeps to himself, Camp Peary has gone about its quiet business since the days when white-haired, pipe-smoking Allen Dulles, then the CIA's director,
washingtonpost.com/archive/local/…

established it to provide paramilitary training agency operatives.

Before that, it was a prisoner-of-war amp for captured German soldiers, and before that a training base for Naval construction battalions (the Seabees). Ellis Bingley remembers when it was just a sleepy little Tidewater community known as Magruder.

Bingley lived in a house there from 1921 to 1943. In 1976, he was permitted to visit his old house under military escort, but was not allowed to enter.

Ostensibly, Camp Peary is a Defense Department -- not CIA -- installation known as the Armed Forces Experimental Training

Activity. It is carried on the Navys inventory of bases, but the Navy refers calls to the Defense Department. Defense says only that it is "top secret."

United States Naval Construction Battalions, better known as the Navy Seabees, form the U.S. Naval Construction Force (NCF). The Seabee nickname is a heterograph of the first letters "C B" from the words Construction Battalion.[1] Depending upon context "Seabee" can refer: all

enlisted personnel in the USN's occupational field 7 (OF-7), all personnel in the Naval Construction Force (NCF), or Construction Battalion. Seabees serve both in and outside the NCF. During WWII they were plank-holders of both the Naval Combat Demolition Units and the

Underwater Demolition Teams (UDTs). The men in the NCF considered these units to be "Seabee".[2] In addition, Seabees served as elements of Cubs, Lions, Acorns and the United States Marine Corps.[3] They also provided the manpower for the top secret CWS Flame Tank Group. Today

the Seabees have many special task assignments starting with Camp David and the Naval Support Unit at the Department of State. Seabees serve under both Commanders of the Naval Surface Forces Atlantic/Pacific fleets as well as on many base Public Works and USN diving commands

Since their creation, all Seabee advanced military training has been under USMC instruction. Even so, they always bring their toolbox. One of those tools is the ingenuity Admiral King referenced. They gained fame for their application of it during WWII. The UDTs and

flamethrowing tanks are declassified top secret examples. Postwar they followed with more of the same for the CIA and State Department. Together with their USMC training and ability to appropriate anything, they provide the Navy an unconventional asset found nowhere else in the

U.S military. google.com/amp/s/www.yach…

The Joint Chiefs of Staff and their senior admirals and generals had to get to Tehran too. Thankfully, a second yacht was available: King’s flagship, the USS Dauntless, better known to yachtsmen as the Delphine.

To complete the conversion, Delphine was dipped in the colors of war—gray/green/blue camouflage paint—and designated Naval Gunboat PG 61 (patrol gunboat), the USS Dauntless. Dauntless arrived at the Navy Yard on June 16, 1943, and was moored to Pier 1. On June 17, King’s flag

was broken and he moved aboard.

Foremost among those passengers were the commanding general of the U.S. Army Air Force, Henry A “Hap” Arnold, Army Chief of Staff and future Secretary of State General George C. Marshall, King and 16 of the senior-most admirals and generals in

the Pentagon. Some five hours later, at 3:30 a.m., they pulled over to the side of the river and came to a halt. “The Potomac anchored off Cherry Point, Virginia, near the mouth of the Potomac River, to await the transfer of the president and his party,” wrote Rigdon in his

final entry for the night. “Some five miles distant, farther out in the bay, the massive Iowa could be seen riding at anchor.”
And there they waited for dawn.
“At 15 minutes before 9, the tiny, white presidential yacht Potomac hove into distant view,” McCrea recorded in his diary

as he watched approvingly. Rigdon remembered: “At 9:16 a.m., the president went aboard the Iowa, using his special brow which was rigged from the after sundeck of the Potomac to the main deck of the Iowa, just abreast of the Iowa’s number three turret. At his request, no honors

were rendered as he came on board the Iowa.”
Instead, Roosevelt extended his hand and greeted the captain. “It’s good to see you again, John,” he said. McCrea responded in kind. Thus began the journey to what the world would come to know as the Tehran Conference, a meeting held

some 71 years ago, the first-ever meeting of the Big Three, a meeting that set the stage for the defeat of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany.

Began military career with 4th Armored Division, Pine Camp, New York. At Communications Officer School,  Ft. Knox, Kentucky, on December 7, 1941 (Pearl Harbor). Transferred to Air Force 1942. Earned Pilot's wings November, 1942. Arrived British West Africa (Ghana), February 1943

as pilot with Air Transport  Command.
Assigned to V.I.P. flying, summer 1943. Personal pilot for General Omar Bradley, General J. C. H. Lee and  General C. R. Smith (Founder and President - American Airlines), among others. Landed U.S. Geological  Survey Team in Saudi Arabia,

Oct 1943, to confirm oil discoveries for Cairo Conference.
 Assigned special duties at Cairo and Teheran Conferences, November-December 1943. Flew Chiang Kai  Shek's Chinese delegation (T.V. Soong's delegates) to Teheran.