I couldn't find verification of this story on snopes.com, but I did find a Wall Street Journal article to back up its authenticity. What an amazing story of survival, creativity & ingenuity! I put a link to the Wall Street Journal article at the end of this post. Enjoy!
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 'safehouses' 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 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 offon their first mission, how to identify a 'rigged' Monopoly set --by means of a tiny red dot, one cleverly rigged to look likean 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 de-classified 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.
Here is a link to the article in the Wall Street Journal from 11/19/07:http://blogs.wsj.com/informedreader/2007/11/19/wwii-pows-perk-monopoly-with-real-money/
Here are my beloved Pound Puppies (1 momma and 2 baby ones). It only took me 20 more years to get a REAL dog of my own!
Next up is my Fisher-Price cash register (a precursor to my obsession with math & numbers):
And the toy we all knew and loved - LEGOS!! My Mom also saved a ton of red bricks that we used to play with. If I remember correctly, they were originally stored in silo-type canisters when we were little. I'm going to play with Legos this week for sure!!
Next up are my Minnie Mouse that I got at Disney World in 3rd grade, my Wrinkles dog, and a set of plastic eggs that come apart and have numbers inside with the appropriate number of pegs to match up in order to put the egg together. I think I learned to count with those!
