[Rhodes22-list] Monopoly & History

[Brad Haslett]

Just stumbled across this jewel of a story on my Bo list and verified
the story on the net.  Amazing.  Brad

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*INTERESTING STORY ABOUT WW II*

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 (Military intelligence-internal) 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!