The Game of "Monopoly"

[USMC 2571]

Monopoly




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 , Italy , France or where ever 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.





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.

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[oldtop]

I wonder if any of those "rigged" sets have survived, and how much one would sell for today.....

[USMC 2571]

That would be interesting to know, Top----no idea....a Marine buddy just sent this to me via email, and I checked it out on Google before posting it just to be sure it was true.....it was declassified just 7 short years ago, no wonder most of us had never heard of this. Shows how resourceful we can be when necessary.

[oldtop]

a bit of internet search reveals that all of these games, and their components (everything, according to the maker) were destroyed after WWII, and NO sets remain..... too bad, an item of such historical value unavailable for viewing by future generations.....

[Baker1971]

Wow. Good to know this.