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Monopoly Plays Its Part In History
Monopoly - I Did Not Know This!
Starting in 1941, an increasing number of British Airmen found themselves as the involuntary guests of the Third Reich, and the Crown was casting about for ways and means to facilitate their escape...
Now, obviously, one of the most helpful aids to that end is a useful and accurate map, one showing not only where stuff was, but also showing the locations of ‘safe houses’ where a POW on-the-lam could go for food and shelter.
Paper maps had some real drawbacks -- they make a lot of noise when you open and fold them, they wear out rapidly, and if they get wet, they turn into mush.
Someone in MI-5 (similar to America’s OSS-later the CIA) got the idea of printing escape maps on silk. It’s durable, can be scrunched-up into tiny wads, unfolded as many times as needed, and makes no noise whatsoever.
At that time, there was only one manufacturer in Great Britain that had perfected the technology of printing on silk, and that was John Waddington, Ltd. When approached by the government, the firm was only too happy to do its bit for the war effort.
By pure coincidence, Waddington was also the U.K. Licensee for the popular American board game, Monopoly. As it happened, ‘games and pastimes’ was a category of item qualified for insertion into ‘CARE packages’, dispatched by the International Red Cross to prisoners of war.
Under the strictest of secrecy, in a securely guarded and inaccessible old workshop on the grounds of Waddington’s, a group of sworn-to-secrecy employees began mass-producing escape maps, keyed to each region of Germany or Italy where Allied POW camps were. When processed, these maps could be folded into such tiny dots that they would actually fit inside a Monopoly playing piece.
As long as they were at it, the clever workmen at Waddington’s also managed to add:
1. A playing token containing a small magnetic compass.
2. A two-part metal file that could easily be screwed together.
3. Useful amounts of genuine high-denomination German, Italian, and French currency, hidden within the piles of Monopoly money!
British and American air crews were advised, before taking off on their first mission, how to identify a ‘rigged’ Monopoly set -- by means of a tiny red dot, one cleverly rigged to look like an ordinary printing glitch, located in the corner of the Free Parking square.
Of the estimated 35,000 Allied POWS who successfully escaped, an estimated one-third were aided in their flight by the rigged Monopoly sets. Everyone who did so was sworn to secrecy indefinitely, since the British Government might want to use this highly successful ruse in still another, future war.
The story wasn’t declassified until 2007, when the surviving craftsmen from Waddington’s, as well as the firm itself, were finally honored in a public ceremony.
It’s always nice when you can play that ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card!
I realise some of you are (probably) too young to have any personal connection to WWII (Sep '39 to Aug. ‘45), but this is still interesting.
Starting in 1941, an increasing number of British Airmen found themselves as the involuntary guests of the Third Reich, and the Crown was casting about for ways and means to facilitate their escape...
Now, obviously, one of the most helpful aids to that end is a useful and accurate map, one showing not only where stuff was, but also showing the locations of ‘safe houses’ where a POW on-the-lam could go for food and shelter.
Paper maps had some real drawbacks -- they make a lot of noise when you open and fold them, they wear out rapidly, and if they get wet, they turn into mush.
Someone in MI-5 (similar to America’s OSS-later the CIA) got the idea of printing escape maps on silk. It’s durable, can be scrunched-up into tiny wads, unfolded as many times as needed, and makes no noise whatsoever.
At that time, there was only one manufacturer in Great Britain that had perfected the technology of printing on silk, and that was John Waddington, Ltd. When approached by the government, the firm was only too happy to do its bit for the war effort.
By pure coincidence, Waddington was also the U.K. Licensee for the popular American board game, Monopoly. As it happened, ‘games and pastimes’ was a category of item qualified for insertion into ‘CARE packages’, dispatched by the International Red Cross to prisoners of war.
Under the strictest of secrecy, in a securely guarded and inaccessible old workshop on the grounds of Waddington’s, a group of sworn-to-secrecy employees began mass-producing escape maps, keyed to each region of Germany or Italy where Allied POW camps were. When processed, these maps could be folded into such tiny dots that they would actually fit inside a Monopoly playing piece.
As long as they were at it, the clever workmen at Waddington’s also managed to add:
1. A playing token containing a small magnetic compass.
2. A two-part metal file that could easily be screwed together.
3. Useful amounts of genuine high-denomination German, Italian, and French currency, hidden within the piles of Monopoly money!
British and American air crews were advised, before taking off on their first mission, how to identify a ‘rigged’ Monopoly set -- by means of a tiny red dot, one cleverly rigged to look like an ordinary printing glitch, located in the corner of the Free Parking square.
Of the estimated 35,000 Allied POWS who successfully escaped, an estimated one-third were aided in their flight by the rigged Monopoly sets. Everyone who did so was sworn to secrecy indefinitely, since the British Government might want to use this highly successful ruse in still another, future war.
The story wasn’t declassified until 2007, when the surviving craftsmen from Waddington’s, as well as the firm itself, were finally honored in a public ceremony.
It’s always nice when you can play that ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card!
I realise some of you are (probably) too young to have any personal connection to WWII (Sep '39 to Aug. ‘45), but this is still interesting.
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That's fascinating Retro, be on the lookout for those as allegedly all of them were destroyed after the war ( but ALL is a very big ask I think) and I found this Forbes article appearing to corroborate it.
https:/
https:/
Hmm 35 000 - seems a lot
my late father wasnt one of them ( caught three times)
these were aids for fliers because they could kill Huns.
It was estimated that for every airman repatriated one resistance worker died - hence my doubt on the number
so the airmen were conducted down the lines ( reseaux) and the others ( my dad ) werent - they were advised to go for the villages abbe. Any one else than a flier was shunned. My father on his longest escape walked from Munich in wartime to Denmark having swum the Kiel Canal in darkness during an air raid
None of the modern Germans believe it can be done.
[Millions of forced workers who spoke German badly]
His forged papers 'looked as tho they had been written on a type writer'.....
my late father wasnt one of them ( caught three times)
these were aids for fliers because they could kill Huns.
It was estimated that for every airman repatriated one resistance worker died - hence my doubt on the number
so the airmen were conducted down the lines ( reseaux) and the others ( my dad ) werent - they were advised to go for the villages abbe. Any one else than a flier was shunned. My father on his longest escape walked from Munich in wartime to Denmark having swum the Kiel Canal in darkness during an air raid
None of the modern Germans believe it can be done.
[Millions of forced workers who spoke German badly]
His forged papers 'looked as tho they had been written on a type writer'.....
corroborate it?
you mean you think it cdnt be true?
I thought everyone knew that
The Germans of course rolled up the lines as they could.
http://
The reseau comete was neutralised after they caught a flier who was interviewed later much later
"They broke my ribs and went on beating me until I told them who had helped me, and then they stopped"
Pretty little interviewer squeals "men and women died as a result of what you said."
POW - do you think I dont know that?
Not my Dad - he was interrogated by the Gestapo having been arrested near Flensburg, and said - "well if you ring up Spangenburg you will find they lack one of their doctors." and the gestapo officer said ( all in German) oh dear well if we had been warned we could have prepared something more suitable for a British Officer.....
you mean you think it cdnt be true?
I thought everyone knew that
The Germans of course rolled up the lines as they could.
http://
The reseau comete was neutralised after they caught a flier who was interviewed later much later
"They broke my ribs and went on beating me until I told them who had helped me, and then they stopped"
Pretty little interviewer squeals "men and women died as a result of what you said."
POW - do you think I dont know that?
Not my Dad - he was interrogated by the Gestapo having been arrested near Flensburg, and said - "well if you ring up Spangenburg you will find they lack one of their doctors." and the gestapo officer said ( all in German) oh dear well if we had been warned we could have prepared something more suitable for a British Officer.....
and of course not only Monopoly
http://
no one watched The Wooden Horse as a child ?
one two buckle my shoe - three four close the door!
one two buckle my shoe - the skipping man was a look out and the coast was clear.
three four close the door - german guard ( 'goon' or 'ferret') coming .....No one on AB did any of this?
or The Silver Sword - that was really about children surviving in Poland. Ian Tresailler - who had never been to Poland.
http://
no one watched The Wooden Horse as a child ?
one two buckle my shoe - three four close the door!
one two buckle my shoe - the skipping man was a look out and the coast was clear.
three four close the door - german guard ( 'goon' or 'ferret') coming .....No one on AB did any of this?
or The Silver Sword - that was really about children surviving in Poland. Ian Tresailler - who had never been to Poland.
A few discrepancies in that account...
It is untrue that safe houses were shown on the maps, as there was a virtual certainty that some of the maps would fall into German hands.
For MI5 read MI9, specifically Intelligence officer Christopher Hutton
https:/
MI9 sent the tools in parcels in the name of various, usually nonexistent, charity organizations (e.g. the "Prisoners' Leisure Hours Fund" and the "Licensed Victuallers' Sports Association"). They did not use Red Cross parcels lest they violate the Geneva Convention and to avoid the guards restricting access to aid packages.
It is untrue that safe houses were shown on the maps, as there was a virtual certainty that some of the maps would fall into German hands.
For MI5 read MI9, specifically Intelligence officer Christopher Hutton
https:/
MI9 sent the tools in parcels in the name of various, usually nonexistent, charity organizations (e.g. the "Prisoners' Leisure Hours Fund" and the "Licensed Victuallers' Sports Association"). They did not use Red Cross parcels lest they violate the Geneva Convention and to avoid the guards restricting access to aid packages.
-- answer removed --
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