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 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 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 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. I realize you claim to be too young to remember WWII (!),but this
is still interesting, isn't it?