Top Secret History: maps printed on silk, smuggled in Monopoly games to aid prisoners of war

Silk map, to aid escaping prisoners in WWII

When you look at these maps the unusual materials are perhaps the first thing you notice.  During WWII hundreds of thousands of maps were produced by the British on thin cloth and tissue paper.  The idea was that a serviceman captured or shot down behind enemy lines should have a map to help him find his way to safety if he escaped or, better still, evade capture in the first place.  A map like this could be concealed in a small place (a cigarette packet or the hollow heel of a flying boot), did not rustle suspiciously if the captive was searched and, in the case of maps on cloth or mulberry leaf paper, could survive wear and tear and even immersion in water.  The scheme was soon extended to cover those who had already been captured, although a certain amount of ingenuity was required to get the maps into the POW camps.

The maps themselves were mainly small scale, covering large areas; many were copied from maps then available from Bartholomew’s in traditional paper form. (Bartholomew’s generously waived all royalties, for the privilege of helping the war effort).  In addition tiny compasses were concealed in buttons, pens and the like; with these two items the escaper had some chance of finding his way to safety.  Other useful items such as small supplies of food and water, and foreign currency, were usually included as well in ‘escape packs’.  Some of the maps gave more than general information.  The one shown here, designed for sending to prisoners, shows a route from Salzburg in Austria to Mojstrana in Yugoslavia (held by forces sympathetic to the Allies).  The red route avoids the easy mountain passes and shows a harder but less populated way over the hills, and gives matter of fact advice on throwing stones at pursuers.

The fact that the maps were made at all was symptomatic of a change in attitudes to prisoners between the two world wars.  In the 1914-18 war, being taken prisoner was regarded as a disgrace.  By the outbreak of World War II policy regarding prisoners had become more constructive; in December 1939 M19, the branch of the Secret Service responsible for escape and evasion, was set up.  It was made clear that it was the duty of all those captured to escape if possible.  One man who was behind many of M19’s most ingenious plans, including the Waddington project, was Christopher Clayton-Hutton. He was a forceful character who worked ceaselessly to overcome both technical and bureaucratic obstacles when he was inspired by an idea. His disregard for regulations and the proper channels sometimes got him into trouble, but he was responsible for an enormous variety of escape aids – flying boots and uniforms that could be converted easily to look like civilian dress, powerful torches concealed inside bicycle pumps for use by the French Resistance. He regarded a map as “the escaper’s most important accessory”, and maps printed on silk and miniature compasses were amongst his first projects. However it was one thing to provide members of the armed forces with escape kits just in case and another to get these things into the POW camps, and it was here that Waddington was particularly helpful.

Prisoners of war were allowed to receive parcels from their families and from relief organisations such as the Red Cross.  Personal deliveries, it was known, were checked thoroughly, and it was felt that it would be unethical to interfere with Red Cross parcels.  A number of fictitious charitable organisations (often based in bombed buildings) were created to send parcels of games, warm clothing and other small comforts to the prisoners.  One of the major problems of captivity was boredom (a fact that was to play its part in the creation of some rather different escape mapping) and games and entertainments were permitted as the guards recognised that if the prisoners were allowed some diversions they would be less troublesome.

Waddington already possessed the technology to print on cloth and made a variety of board games, packs of cards and so forth that could sent to the camps.  They began by printing silk maps for supply to air crews, both British and American, and went on to conceal maps inside Monopoly boards, chess sets and packs of cards which could be sent into the prison camps.  The whole business of making the maps was shrouded in secrecy and the letters do not tell the whole story.  The references to different coloured playing cards, for example, made in one of the letters, are not explained at all in the correspondence; many communications were by word of mouth and never written down for security reasons.  A special code, which is described in another of the letters, was used to indicate to the Ministry which map was concealed inside a particular game so that it would be sent to a prisoner of war camp in the appropriate area.  A full stop after Marylebone Station, for instance, meant Italy, a stop after Mayfair meant Norway, Sweden and Germany, and one after Free Parking meant Northern France, Germany and its frontiers.  “Straight” boards were marked “Patent applied for” with a full stop.

Almost throughout the correspondence maps are referred to as pictures, and codes were used to identify them, such as Emerald, Double Eagle or Dutch Girl; exactly what these codes meant is not explained by any of the letters.  The very first letter from the correspondence seems to be the only one even to mention the word “maps”.  One letter, from Clayton-Hutton of M19 to Norman Watson of Waddington, states cryptically that “I have some ideas on the lines you and 1 know of’, but gives no indication of what these lines are.  Parcels are sent to the left luggage office at Kings Cross Station rather than directly to the War Office.  Another letter, not displayed here, refers to a conversation between Clayton-Hutton and Norman Watson of Waddington on the innocuous subject of car parking; this was actually a reference to the Free Parking space on the Monopoly board which had been marked with a full stop to show that there was a map inside of northern France.

It’s impossible to know how many of the maps smuggled into the camps were found or used.  But it is known that over 35,000 British and other Allied troops imprisoned or cut off behind enemy lines did manage to make their way to Allied territory before the end of the war.  It has been estimated that about half of these would have had a silk map with them.  In many of these cases their maps and compasses, and other escape aids, must have saved their lives.