A game board built to hide an escape plan
During World War II, specially prepared Monopoly sets helped British intelligence get escape aids to Allied prisoners of war. The operation involved MI9, the British agency that supported escape and evasion, and Waddingtons, the company that made Monopoly in Britain.
The board’s familiar surface offered useful cover: it looked like an ordinary game, while its layered construction could conceal thin maps. Some sets also contained small tools, such as a compass or a file, hidden among the playing pieces. In accounts of the scheme, real banknotes were mixed with Monopoly money so a prisoner could take spending cash without drawing attention to it.
How the parcels reached prisoners
The sets were sent into prisoner-of-war camps under the cover of relief parcels, including parcels associated with the Red Cross. That route mattered: aid deliveries could reach prisoners in a way that a plainly military package could not. The game was not a universal issue or a feature of ordinary retail Monopoly; these were covertly adapted sets intended for particular prisoners and circumstances.
Once a prisoner had the board, the printed streets and colored spaces were beside the point. The useful information was concealed within it, and the small tools could help turn a route on a map into a possible escape. The board’s everyday appearance was part of the method: guards had little reason to suspect that a familiar game might carry practical escape equipment.
Why Monopoly made effective cover
A board game could pass as harmless recreation, and its broad, layered board offered more hiding space than a small object. The same recognizable design that made Monopoly easy to identify also helped disguise the alteration. Its wartime role was therefore a striking inversion: a game associated with buying property became packaging for maps, tools, and a chance to get out.
