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I met a woman who helped make t he U.S. contribution to the silk
maps. She said they were discontinued fairly early (1942?) because by
then European fighters were so well organized that if a flyer made it
down, he was picked up by the underground right away if the Germans
didn't arrive first.
I do have a cotton map of Japan that is obviously a real map, not a
souvenir sort.
Dee,
who has never made a decent map
On Dec 16, 2009, at 10:59 AM, [email protected] wrote:
This is a MapHist list message (when you hit 'reply' you're
replying to the whole list)
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The following story is wandering the Internet, and a friend
sent it to me. I knew about the silk escape maps but not the
connection to the game of Monopoly. Tom Goodrich
Silk Escape Maps and 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. They are durable, can be scrunched-up
into tiny wads, and unfolded as many times as needed, and make 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 a 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.
_______________________________________________
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the views of the author.
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Dee Longenbaugh
The Observatory, ABAA
299 North Franklin Street
Juneau, Alaska, 99801
www.observatorybooks.com
[email protected]
Since 1977
Alaska specialists
Lichen on the rock ignores a nearby lightning strike, and so it is
with cartographers.
B.E.W. Allen
_______________________________________________
MapHist: E-mail discussion group on the history of cartography
hosted by the Faculty of Geosciences, University of Utrecht.
The statements and opinions expressed in this message are those of
the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the University of
Utrecht. The University of Utrecht does not take any responsibility for
the views of the author.
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