"How Allied Flyers Used Monopoly to Escape From " Topic

….German POW Camps

"For captured Allied flyers in World War Two, Monopoly was more than just a way to kill the long hours of idleness in German POW camps — it was a veritable tool box for helping them escape. That's because beginning in 1941, British military intelligence rigged thousands of boxes of the popular board game with tools, compasses, European currency and even tiny maps that prisoners could use to make their way to freedom. All the equipment was miniaturized and pasted into the board, hidden within the bundles of game money, crammed into the tokens, or even packed into the tiny houses and hotels. What's more amazing is that the games containing these secret escape kits were unwittingly distributed to POWs as part of care packages right under the nose of German prison guards.

Aside from the tiny two-piece screw-together metal file and the miniature compass hidden in the game, perhaps the most incredible accomplishment of the escape kits' designers were the tiny maps packed into the game's hotels. Printed on silk, as opposed to paper, the maps could be folded and unfolded without tearing or wrinkling and could be very easily concealed. According to the article, the maps were possibly the most vital element of the kit — once POWs were outside of the wire, the maps would show the flyers how to get to friendly or neutral territory…."

link

Main page
link

Amicalement
Armand

Interesting piece, thanks for posting.

Improvise, adapt, overcome …

From a legal perspective was this a circumvention of the Geneva Conventions/Red Cross Protocols?

Glad you enjoyed it my friend!. (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

MI-9 did not send the games through the Red Cross for obvious reasons. Instead they set up multiple 'charities' with innocuous-sounding names such as Licensed Victualers Prisoner Relief Fund. Some years ago I saw an interview with the widow of a Great Escaper (Wally Floody) who said that the matter was not talked about because of concern that the scheme would have to be used in case of a war with the USSR. I vaguely recall that the Americans ran a similar operation.