Photo Gallery (U.S. National Park Service)

Photos of Prince William Forest Park from 1942-1945 when it was used by the OSS to train spies. All photos are credited to the National Archives and Records Administration.

*The copyright status of these images may vary. Check the copyright status on the image detail pages before you download them.

The buildings of the headquarters of the Special Operations training group.

Area A-4 - Headquarters

1209 x 1500
0.6 MB

Cooks made first class meals for OSS recruits such as these pies!

Making Pies for Spies

485 x 600
0.1 MB

New recruits learned everything from how to shoot small arms to how to blow up a building.

Small arms training

483 x 630
0.2 MB

Transmitting and decoding messages was a very important part of the training new recruits received while at Chopawamsic.

Spies type in morse code

470 x 600
0.1 MB

New recruits had to learn not only to put messages into morse code, but also to receive messages in morse code and translate them into english text.

Decoding

1263 x 1500
0.5 MB

Spies learn to set up and take down radio antennae quickly for use behind enemy lines.

Learning to set up radio anten...

1234 x 1500
0.5 MB

Down time

243 x 300
0.1 MB

The OSS recruits in Area C (Communications Branch) learned to code and decode messages.

More code work

2021 x 2400
1.0 MB

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