No Name Key

[Tim Gratz]

For those of you who may be interested here is a map of the little island named "No Name Key" on which the Interpen group, led by Gerry Patrick Hemming, trained.

http://maps.mapnetwork.com/floridakeys/tdc/index.asp?_map=2

You apparently need to use the navigation bars and zoom in. No Name Key is immediately to the North-East of Big Pine Key. Immediately to the South-west of Big Pine Key is Little Torch Key. Between Little Torch Key and Ramrod Key is Newfound Harbor. About twenty miles out Newfound Key is Little Palm Island, a very upscale resort. I think if you zoom out you can see Little Palm Island, but it is not marked.

Before it was developed, Little Palm Island was called Munson Island and it was on Munson Island in 1960 that Warner Brothers filmed "PT 109".

If you go to Key West, you will see a street called Riviera Drive running south and parallel to Flagler Avenue on the west end of Flagler. CIA agent Cesar Diosdado lived on Riviera Drive.

Immediately north of Key West is Stock Island. It was on Stock Island that the CIA had a front company called "Mineral Traders". From the "Mineral Traders" warehouse CIA agents Grayston Lynch and Rip Robertson supervised shipments of weapons into Cuba in preparation for the Bay of Pigs.

Finally, if you go to Marathon (north of Big Pine) you should be able to find the small island of Coco Plum, which is where Rolando Masferrer and Mitch WerBell planned "Project Nassau" in 1966-1967 (Diosdado and crew caught and arrested them on January 2, 1967). I added a notation on Coco Plum Road for "Project Nassau".

This may help you get a perspective of the places in the Keys that played a role in the anti-Castro activities of the early sixties.

Gerry may add a story about the filming of "PT 109".

Edited May 22, 2005 by Tim Gratz

[Tim Gratz]

If anyone tried to use the "navigation bars" to look up places on the map and had difficulty, feel free to drop me a private e-mail.

Thanks!

[Al Carrier]

If anyone tried to use the "navigation bars" to look up places on the map and had difficulty, feel free to drop me a private e-mail.

Thanks!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Mr. Gratz,

No Name Key was also utilized in the early eighties for black ops training in the field of Counterinsurgency and Scout Sniper final testing (part of The School of Americas field training and testing). For those interested in tracking military operatives of this period for Central and South America, key in on personnel training courses or assignments to Marathon Station, for short term assignment. This was how it was coded. Also look for parrallel date ranges for any operations that begin with FRAN or FRANg which is a alpha coding for small force operations in the field of counterinsurgency and assassination to disrupt the flow of operations in third world nations. The early history of such ops began in Vietnam as part of Phoenix with FRAN13.

I am sure Mr. Hemming should be able to add insight to this?

Al

[Tim Gratz]

Thank you, Mr. Carrier. Was not aware of that. Most interesting.

The Keys remain a possible action center should there ever be any US movement against Cuba. Mark has some confidential information about unusual buildings being erected at the naval base on Boca Chica. That base was also prominent in the events in the early sixties. It is located approximately ten miles north of Key West on the ocean side (south side) of Highway US 1 (if you have figured out how to use the navigation tool). I'll ask Mark to post some of the info he has gathered.

Gordon Winslow tells me he has a pre-publication copy of a book that will claim to show all of the CIA "bases" in the entire Keys in the 1960s. Will post about it as soon as I get a copy of it.

I have not yet tried to locate on the map "Point Mary" on Key Largo where Rosselli was supposedly active in training snipers.

By the way, last year Gordon Winslow's group had lunch at Little Palm Island with "the daughters of the disappeared" (Chris is of course a Forum member).

Edited May 22, 2005 by Tim Gratz