YESTERDAY WE LEARNED OF THE ALLIES’ SECRET WW II WEAPON—the game of Monopoly fitted out with escape aids for POWs. Today we continue with details from a variety of sources. (Ain’t research fun!?)
Faux Charities. Martin Hickes writes in The Guardian, “How Monopoly Boards Got Second War Prisoners Out of Jail Free.” He describes, “It was a cardinal rule in MI9 that they never used Red Cross parcels. Instead they set up their own cover organisations such as the ‘Prisoners’ Leisure Hours Fund’ and the ‘Licensed Victuallers’ Sports Association.’ These dispatched both ordinary parcels containing clothes and the special ones containing escape aids.”
Waddington produced British Monopoly games, including those fitted for POW escape. Image from WW2 Escape Lines.
Escape Tools Versus Traditional Games. Deej Johnson shares details in “War Games: How Monopoly Became a Wartime Tool for the UK’s Secret Service,” mojo-nation.com, October 21, 2024. Johnson interviews Maggie Graham who “did Waddington PR for a while, and I’m the daughter-in-law of Beric Watson. Beric is the middle of three brothers—the third Watson generation to run Waddingtons.”
Maggie Graham shares Waddington history. This and following two images from mojo-nation.
“For example,” Graham says, “they asked Waddingtons to create playing cards with thin maps hidden between the paper layers.”
Maps secreted in playing cards were another Waddington product.
Graham describes, “There were also cut-out slots in the cardboard to take a small compass and several fine-quality files. Even the playing tokens were converted into real gold or silver pieces to be used for exchange purposes and bribery. Also, the money was set up in a special way. The top few notes would be Monopoly money… But underneath would be real currency. That might be German marks, French francs or Italian lira—whatever was needed depending on where the set was being sent.”
She continues, “To that point, there was a little code system printed on the boards. For example, if the ‘Free Parking’ square was marked with a full stop [a punctuation “period” for us Yanks], there was a map of Northern France and Germany inside. A full stop after ‘Marylebone Station’ meant a map of Italy… A dot after Mayfair indicated a map of upper Germany and Scandinavia.”
Guncotton and Urine. Johnson talks with Maggie’s husband Alistair, who recounts, “I just wanted to add something about the maps…. Some escape routes and instructions were printed on something called guncotton—a highly explosive material. That way, if you got captured, you could just put a lit cigarette to the corner— it would literally disappear in a puff of smoke…. Fizzle away – it wouldn’t even leave an ash. Workers had to stand by with fire extinguishers when they were printing on it!”
A silk map features multi-language commentary. Image from WW2 Escape Lines.
“And,” Alistair says, “then there was another one they developed that just looked like a blank sheet of linen. It wasn’t until you urinated on it that any details showed up. [Rinsed in water, the details would disappear again.] I don’t know if they were ever used, but that’s certainly something that got made.”
Not bad at all for a company just striving to keep the Royal Box rustle-free. ds
© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2025