SPECIAL TRAINING SCHOOLS• 511end of 1940 whenultracame on stream and Section VIII supplied
the radio and teletype channels to the approved recipients.SPECIAL TRAINING SCHOOLS (STS).During World War II,Spe-
cial Operations Executivedeveloped a large training organization
to give volunteers the skills to infiltrate enemy-occupied territory, run
wireless networks, and plan and execute clandestine operations. The
schools were divided into three groups: a preliminary paramilitary
course (Group A), usually in the Scottish Highlands; a ‘‘finishing
school’’ (Group B), where agents were prepared for operations in the
field; and sabotage or tradecraft operations courses run by individual
country sections (Group C).
After their initial recruitment interviews, which were usually con-
ducted in War Office premises, candidates underwent a month’s in-
tensive training at the Group A schools, mainly centered around
Arisaig House and six neighboring properties in the inhospitable and
rugged Highlands terrain surrounding Loch Morar in Inverness-shire.
Here Colonel Pat Anderson and Captain James Young taught the
basic rules of survival and unarmed combat, as well as some of the
more arcane arts such as sabotage, silent killing, and weapon han-
dling. Others teaching on this preliminary paramilitary course were
Gavin Maxwell, later the author ofRing of Bright Water, and Mat-
thew Hodgart, a Cambridge don. Local residents, of whom there
were few, were told that the area had been allocated to training com-
mandos. Graduates from Group A moved south to the Group B
schools, each linked to George Taylor’s country sections, which put
the finishing touches to the agents’ skills and prepared them for
undercover work in the field. Thereafter the agents were either dis-
persed to holding centers to await deployment or to other courses run
by Group C operational schools.
Parachute training (STS 51a) was given under the guidance of
Wing Commander Maurice Newnham at Dunham House, Dunham
Massey, Cheshire, and later at two houses close to RAF Ringway,
Manchester. A staff officers course (STS 3) was run from Stodham
Park near Petersfield, and George Rheam, formerly of the Central
Electricity Board, headed a specialist industrial demolition course at
Brickendonbury (originally designated Station XVII) near Hertford,
the commandant of which, Captain Frederic Peters, RN, won the Vic-