[HCARC] Monopoly

[W4wj at aol.com]

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 ) 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 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  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  realize most of you are (probably) too young to have any personal 
connection to  WWII (Dec. '41 to Aug.. '45), but this is still interesting.For 
more INFO on  this, go to snopes.com and type in monopoly game in the "search  
box"