There Is A School For Training Secret Agents In Scotland

There is an unassuming place in Scotland that trained secret agents. During the World War II, agents were taught on how to fight the Nazis in this Lodge.

Drumintoul Lodge is an expanse two miles east of Aviemore, in the lower reach of the Cairngorms. It was originally constructed as a Victorian hunting lodge in 1878, with twelve family rooms, four public rooms, eight servants' rooms and a tennis lawn. The Drumintoul Lodge lies within a primeval pine forest in the Rothiemurchus Estate, with its own small fjord to the southeast, and is let for holiday accommodation.

In the 1940s, Drumintoul Lodge was built in case of a foray by Nazis onto the site. It is tough to imagine an area that would seem to be less of a target than the Cairngorms. Drumintoul Lodge is located in the eastern Highlands, where Britain's largest national park is as sleepy as it is remarkable. With four of the UK's five highest foothills, dense forests and often, arctic conditions, the park is home to fewer than 20,000 people. Drumintoul Lodge most visitors visit for wildlife and sport, which is skiing in particular.

During the World War Two, Drumintoul Lodge and two other adjacent sites, Glenmore Lodge and Forest Lodge, served a significant role in opposition against the Nazis. It served as the Special Operations Executive (SOE) training school in Britain for Allied resisters of all nationalities. The system was considered so frightening that the Germans referred to it as the International Gangster School.

However, it was at the Drumintoul Lodge, the Norwegian training camp in the Cairngorms, called STS 26, that the secret agents of Norwegian Independent Company 1 were educated in sabotage and guerrilla warfare. Moreover, it was in Drumintoul Lodge that they planned and practiced what is often considered the most successful single act of SOE sabotage: the daring, James Bond-like demolition of the hydroelectric plant thought to be necessary to Nazi Germany's ability to develop the atomic bomb, says BBC.