From: *Travis*
Date: Wed, Oct 1, 2008
Subject: Interesting Story
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 authorities were
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-loose 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 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 what-so-ever. 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 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 where 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 use 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. Anyway, it's always nice when you can play that '*Get Out of Jail
Free*' card.
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