Spy Combatives

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.