True or Not?

[Barry Churcher]

I don't know if this is true but it makes for a plausible story.
Barry


Starting in 1941, an increasing number of British airmen found themselves as the involuntary guests of the Third Reich, and the authorities were 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-loose 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 got the idea of printing escape maps on silk. It's durable, can be scrunched-up into tiny wads, and 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 located (Red Cross packages were delivered to prisoners in accordance with that same regional system). 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 de-classified until 2007, when the surviving craftsmen from Waddington's, as well as the firm itself, were finally honoured in a public ceremony. Anyway, it's always nice when you can play that 'Get Out of Jail Free' card.

[Howard]

True or not, it's a ripping yarn & one that will be firmly embedded into my memory bank. Thanks for sharing.

[phoenix]

that is worth investigating further. If true it makes for an incredible story!

[Tony Smith]

I did a google search of "Waddington's monopoly ww2" and the only references that come up are several web forums running the same story from around Nov 2007, mostly copied word for word. No story or coverage of the "Public ceremony".

Sounds like an Urban Myth.

[David_Hayward (RIP)]

Maps were produced on silk and embedded in gramophone records. I am pretty cetrtain (and may be mis-recalling) that maps were also embedded in board games' carboard playing boards; in both cases by sandwiching. Wasn't it MI9 that dealt with PoW escapes as well? Airey Neeve joined them when he had his home run.

[Grant Bowker]

My feeling is that some of it might be true, but having the location of safe houses printed on a map sounds dangerous.
If one of the maps fell into German hands they would obviously have raided the safe house, with obvious consequences to the resistance workers. They would also have set up a dummy safe house to act as a trap for escapers or evaders.
It is hard for me to believe that either consequence would have been considered acceptable.

[Clive_Dakers]

The original monopoly sets were produced using surplus Confederate States bank notes.

The Cumberland Pencil Company of Keswick in Cumberland secretly produced pencils with silk escape maps inside for use by downed airmen. The owner and only one other man stayed behind after hours to make them themselves to reduce the security risk.

[Barry Churcher]

It is interesting that after the OMVA show in Kingston last week we visited the radio museum which is on the base. If you are ever near Kingston it is an excellent museum. Anyway, we found the same story printed in the museum. Could be that they never researched it but they are displaying it.
Barry

[David_Hayward (RIP)]

There's a nice pencil museum in Keswick, which is not far from my company's HQ in Appleby.

As regards the suggestion, I rather think that this is an amalgam of fact mixed with some mis-recollection? The existence and location of safe houses seems implausible as they would and did change all the time. Further, the cellular system was intended to prevent anyone outside the cell from revealing anything about another cell.