In 1942, a highly classified military intelligence unit was created at Fort Hunt, a bygone coastal defense installation near Washington, D.C.

The unit was known only as PO Box 1142, for the mailing address of its estimated 1,000-plus personnel whose work during World War II largely remained secret until recent years, when the National Park Service uncovered parts of the fort's history.

George Weidinger, 84, of Mayfield Heights, was one of those military intelligence workers. But even he never realized the possible importance of his work or the role of the unit until the history of PO Box 1142 came to light.

The unit was responsible for interrogating Nazi Germany's top military officers, government officials and scientists as they were taken prisoner during the war.

Through the unit's efforts, the Allies learned about German research in such areas as rocketry, the atomic bomb, the jet engine, U-boats, microwaves and infrared technology.

The German-speaking Weidinger, who was born in Austria and came to Cleveland with his family in 1939, spent nearly a year working at the installation after being drafted into the Army in 1943.

His job largely involved eavesdropping on prisoners.

"I'd listen to their interrogation and record that, then switch to when they went back to their cell where they would be talking to a cellmate, and they might say something interesting, like 'I lied to them,' or whatever," Weidinger recalled.

His work was so hush-hush that he never even told his wife of 65 years, Nina, except to describe it only as military intelligence.

"I wondered, but I knew it was better not to ask questions," she said. "So I just let it go. There were enough other things to talk about at that time."

Nearly 4,000 German POWs spent some time in the camp's 100 barracks, ringed by barbed wire and watch towers, until it was bulldozed in 1946.

Among the prisoners were such notables as German scientist Wernher von Braun, who would become one of America's leading space experts; Reinhard Gehlen, a Nazi spymaster who would later work for the CIA; and Heinz Schlicke, inventor of infrared detection.

Though the mere existence of this unit and its intent violated the Geneva conventions on POW protocol, extracting information was done without torture, intimidation or cruelty.

Prisoners were wooed with persuasion and treats in the form of recreation and even shopping or dinner trips to the city. Their cells and conversations were surreptitiously monitored.

As Weidinger recently explained, "You gained their confidence. Tell them the war was almost over and you guys are losing, so you might as well cooperate. Play chess with them. Take them shopping. Invariably they'd start talking."

Any anger toward their captives, or even word of their work to outsiders, had to be suppressed by the personnel at PO Box 1142, who were sworn to secrecy.

Many of the interrogators were Jewish immigrants from Germany whose families died in the Holocaust.

Weidinger remembered his own early brush with nazism. As a youth working at a car repair shop in Vienna during the early German occupation, he had failed to fix an SS officer's car on time. The officer asked Weidinger, "How would you like your parents in a concentration camp?"

Weidinger said the unit also worked to keep German scientists from being captured by the Russians, and it devised means for helping Allied POWs escape.

"If a pilot was shot down, we'd send him a package with a baseball. Inside that baseball was a radio," Weidinger said. There also were playing cards that could be peeled to reveal escape maps.

The legacy of PO Box 1142 went largely unrecognized after the war, and Weidinger pursued a career including work as a draftsman, senior buyer, materials manager and manufacturers' representative. He and his wife raised a family that includes three daughters, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

The untold story of the unit came to light within the past two years, largely through the efforts of the National Park Service. Certain aspects of that hidden history of the former Fort Hunt site -- now popular picnic grounds in the service's George Washington Memorial Parkway office in Fairfax County -- are still being uncovered by Chief Ranger Vincent Santucci and Brandon Bies, cultural resource manager.

Last year the Park Service hosted a reunion of 25 former members of PO Box 1142. About 100 survivors have been located. During the gathering, a flagpole and plaque recognizing the unit's service were dedicated on the original grounds.

The recent unit accolades, including a Congressional Proclamation, have had a profound impact on Weidinger's view of his role in the war.

Until recently, he never knew the overall scope of PO Box 1142, or how his work may have contributed to the unit's success.

"When I was discharged, I looked back at my service like it was nothing," he said. "Once it was explained that I was part of a team, that changed my total outlook -- that maybe some of the monitoring I did, did result in something."

He also has a new project in his retirement -- compiling a unit newsletter and tracking down other surviving members of PO Box 1142.

"It's wonderful," he said. "Each one has a story to tell."

A story of a secret war that no longer needs to be hidden.