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An All-In-One Escape Kit

Christopher Clayton Hutton

  • If captured, British airmen were instructed to look for Monopoly boards in care packages
  • After confiscating the tools, the heads of prison escape committees were told to destroy the boards
  • The red dot on Free Parking meant that the board contained a map and tools

Silk Map Printing

  • Hutton realized that a game board could serve as an all-in-one escape kit for POWs
  • Germans typically delivered parcels from the Red Cross and charities to prisoners
  • Created fake organizations to ship the games into the camps via care packages
  • Since Waddingtons was already producing silk maps for British airmen, M19 requested that they secretly modify boards to contain escape tools as well
  • Employees created depressions within the boards, where they hid a silk map, a small compass, a Gigli saw, and a file
  • Maps were inserted that correlated to the boards' camp destination
  • Real currency was hidden under the Monopoly money

Hutton, circa 1940

Despite the genius of Hutton's concealments, only one evaded the Germans throughout the war...

  • Career journalist who was obsessed with escapology
  • Hired in 1939 by the British War Office to serve as an intelligence officer for M19
  • Tasked with designing and concealing tools that could be smuggled into German POW camps
  • Early devices:
  • Boots with hollowed out heels that held knives, maps, a compass, and a file
  • Telescope designed as a cigarette holder
  • Compasses so small that they were hidden on the backs of buttons
  • Before shifting its focus to the board game industry, John Waddington Ltd. was a printing company. In the pre-war era, it specialized in printing on silk for theater programs.

  • With the outbreak of World War II, M19, the British secret service unit responsible for escape and evasion, contacted Waddingtons about printing silk maps for British airmen.

  • Unlike paper maps, silk maps didn't rustle, nor did they tear or dissolve in water as easily as the paper alternative.

Examples of Hutton's Concealment Devices

Airman's Silk Map

Unrecognized Efforts

How can maps and tools be smuggled to the allied soldiers who are already in the prison camps?

Declassification

The role of Monopoly in World War II was unrecognized for four decades. Why?

  • Strict secrecy during the war
  • Fear of a targeted reprisal by German bombers
  • No modified boards survived the war
  • Use in future wars
  • Allied officials maintained the secret so that the seemingly innocent game could be utilized again

In 1985, British

intelligence declassified

documents related to

Hutton's work with M19

Conclusion

John Powell Davies (left) and Colonel James Yule, former POWs at Colditz, at the 50th anniversary of Monopoly in London

Monopoly in the 1930s

By the 1930s, the craze over monopoly was going global, and buyers overseas wanted to strike up deals with Parker Brothers to publish their own local versions of the popular game.

Overall, it is estimated that roughly 35,000 allied POWs escaped from German prison camps during World War II. Due to the secrecy of the Monopoly mission, it's impossible to know how many of these game board kits were used to aid prisoners' efforts.

John Waddington Ltd.

Prisoners at Colditz

John Powell Davies: "It made an enormous difference to one's espirit to know that there were people in England trying to help one."

  • Victor Watson, head of the British game maker Waddingtons, purchased the rights to sell a British version of Monopoly in the United Kingdom.

  • Substituting British locales - Piccadilly, Bond Street, Mayfair - for Atlantic City ones, the British version became a hit in 1936.

Colditz Castle

top-security prison for recaptured escapees and high-ranking officials

Bibliography

Photograph Sources

Get Out of Jail Free: Monopoly Escape Kits in World War II

By Hanna Merrell

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