Maryland is home to three unique strategic centers in WWII.
The U.S. Army opens a Military Intelligence Training Center (MITC), Camp Ritchie, in western Maryland. Among the 20,000 servicemen and women trained at the post, are 11,000 “Ritchie Boys” who play an “outsize role” in WWII intelligence.
About 2-3,000 of the Richie Boys are exiled European Jews, mostly German, who are trained to interrogate enemy prisoners, interpret and translate for foreign officials and read codes and ciphers. The Ritchie Boys are part of the Office of Strategic Services, (OSS), the ancestor of the modern CIA.
Fort Detrick in Frederick County becomes the center of the U.S.biological weapons program from 1943 to 1969.
President Franklin Roosevelt turns a Depression-era Catoctin Mountain federal government retreat into Shangri-La, a WWII Presidential Retreat. Later, as Camp David, it hosts both presidential family get-togethers and official diplomatic summits for 15 presidents.
