Wednesday, March 22, 2017

Where Britain's MI6 agents are trained

     MI6 remains a rather elusive intelligence agency, so the actual training facility may be plural, “facilities.” We all know that CIA case officers are trained at the “Farm” in a remote part of Virginia, but agent training for MI6 may take place in some locations that are unknown. However, it appears the publicly-known training facility is at Fort Monckton in Portsmouth. It’s also referred to as “No.1 Military Training Establishment” by the British Army and Britain’s  Ministry of Defence is located there.

MI6 training occurs at Fort Monckton, Portsmouth

     Former MI6 agent Richard Tomlinson wrote the book “The Big Breach,” where it’s mentioned that Fort Monckton is the Secret Intelligence Service’s (MI6) field training center, the place where MI6 agents learn basic and advanced field training tactics.

Journey through the Caribbean islands and Florida Keys with CIA Spymaster Corey Pearson!

     MI6 (SIS) agents train for six months in the “Intelligence Officer's New Entry Course” (IONEC) program and learn how to recruit and handle agents, how to operate under a cover identity and various tradecraft skills such as the use of dead drops, surveillance and counter-surveillance techniques, secret writing and the use of codes. This all takes place at Fort Monckton, Portsmouth.

     But, as mentioned above the SIS is flexible and may have other ephemeral training facilities elsewhere. For example, SIS had its hands in teaching Mujahideen fighters to use heavy weapons on islands off Western Scotland. The SAS Revolutionary Warfare Wing (RWW) did the actual training, but SIS agents were present. The Mujahideen soldiers were shuttled between Scotland and Pakistan by a C-130 operated by a small cadre of RAF special forces pilots, who worked closely with SIS operations.
Robert Morton, M.Ed., Ed.S. writes the "Corey Pearson- CIA Spymaster in the Caribbean" spy series.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

It's in Gosport, not Portsmouth.

Unknown said...

That for sure is not in Portsmouth. It's in Gosport (Hants U.K)