Escape from WWII POW Camps

Starting in 1940, an increasing number of British and Canadian 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, Italy, and France or wherever Allied POW camps were located. When processed, these maps could be folded into such tiny dots that they would actually fit inside a Monopoly playing piece. While 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 honoured in a public ceremony. It’s always nice when you can play that ‘Get Out of Jail’ Free’ card!

Recent posts

WOp SL (Laurie) Davis

Wireless Operator SL (Laurie) Davis 1852537 619 Squadron RAF Strubby On 17th May 1943, Laurie Davis was at Lords Cricket Ground at 10.00 to join up and receive a medical check. After an A1 pass, they were given a mug of tea and a “wad” and sat and listened to accounts filtering through from the […]

Read More...

Betty Walker, WRAF

Betty Walker, nee Gledhill, born Bradford 1923. My mother enlisted in the WRAF as soon as she was old enough, seeing it as a big adventure then spending most of the war in Lincolnshire as a driver, and told me many stories about that time when I was a child. She was shown how to […]

Read More...

Henry Lisle Christian

CHRISTIAN, Sgt. (W.Op/Air Gnr) HENRY LISLE 41572 R.N.Z.A.F. 289 (R.A.F.) Squadron Henry Lisle Christian was born in Owhango, central North Island, New Zealand on 18 May 1916, the only child of Henry Christian, a native of the Isle of Man, and his wife Hilda (née Jacobsen). His father, Henry senior, was working in the Owhango […]

Read More...