Pink And Blue Wrestling Shoes

The monopoly in wartime, is here!

While I was reading the wonderful book The Game Makers : The Story of Parker Brothers from Tiddledy Winks to Trivial Pursuit of Philip E. Orban which I have already mentioned before for the birth of the game Pit forthcoming in September, I came across an interesting article titled "The secret of Monopoly." I've translated here in our language of Molière because I know there are always anglophobes among you. There is a small illustration I scanned the book .

When the allied air forces began to risk their lives in air missions over occupied Europe, the UK partner of Parker Brothers found a way to use the game Monopoly to help all those who had been captured by the Germans. The British War Office then worked with a small group of members of Waddington to change the Monopoly board that the Red Cross was responsible for delivering prisoners of war. They had the idea to dig with precision cuts in the game boards and just before gluing the labels, to "fill" with compasses, maps and documents describing the routes to take to escape from prison in which prisoners were being held.
At the time, cards were printed on silk because they did not make noise when were open. In addition, members of Waddington had so refined their method as British airmen were all in the heel of their boots, a silk map of Waddington in case they were captured. Play
gambling were common among the Germans, Italians and Austrians. We do not know exactly how many airmen who were saved by the Monopoly, but 35,000 prisoners of war managed to escape prison and rejoin their comrades safe.