You'll Never look at a MONOPOLY Game the same !

HAPPY FEET


Joined: 18/07/2008
Posts: 416

Message Posted:
09/11/2009 17:19

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 fir

HAPPY FEET


Joined: 18/07/2008
Posts: 416

Message Posted:
09/11/2009 17:21

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 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 pil

HAPPY FEET


Joined: 18/07/2008
Posts: 416

Message Posted:
09/11/2009 17:22

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 wa s 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!

Vidal


Joined: 14/05/2009
Posts: 867

Message Posted:
09/11/2009 17:56

Thanks for sharing that. Its a wonderful story.

daisy dukes


Joined: 06/09/2008
Posts: 3815

Message Posted:
09/11/2009 18:00

Wow!! I've always detested monopoly, but maybe i shall give it another go...my imagination would run riot whilst playing!! Thanks for that, very interesting piece of information.



DD

ilovecyprus


Joined: 08/05/2007
Posts: 2880

Message Posted:
09/11/2009 18:10

msge 1



cheers for that Wayne



I'll come to yours for a few beers, some jazz funk and a game of monopoly.



Hope you are well mate

HAPPY FEET


Joined: 18/07/2008
Posts: 416

Message Posted:
10/11/2009 11:05

Hi Mark, yes keeping well.

I think I forgot to tell you about the Soul/Jazz boat party on Sunday 20th Dec,not sure if all the tickets have been sold. Will e mail you .

fiendishpaul


Joined: 18/05/2008
Posts: 1720

Message Posted:
10/11/2009 15:05

What a great story.



Thanks



Paul

Yilly


Joined: 02/11/2008
Posts: 46

Message Posted:
11/11/2009 01:02

wow thats very interesting..... you was right i would never look at a game of monopoly the same...... would be good if we could get our hands on one of them original boards