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Wall Tiles and Free Parking
From: The British Library
| By:
Deborah Hall |
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION |
During the Second World War, the ingenuity of a game-board manufacturer played a major part in helping British prisoners of war escape through enemy territory. Waddington PLC, best known for manufacturing the game Monopoly, produced maps of enemy territory on tissue paper, silk and rayon, to be smuggled to POWs in boots, clothing and games. British Library curator Deborah Hall describes Waddington PLC's unusual enterprise and the success of some POWs in creating their own escape-map printing press. |
 aps are vital in wartime for many reasons, and geographical information is frequently collected and used for military
purposes. This is a story about escape maps, designed to help the solitary fugitive trying to find his way through hostile territory. Specifically, it concerns a most unusual map creation venture during the Second World War: Waddington PLC, the British printing company best known for such games as Monopoly, was involved in printing escape maps on silk, rayon and tissue paper for military use and smuggling some of them to prisoners of war. An archive of correspondence relating to the military maps, along with samples of the maps themselves, has been donated to the British Library's Map Library, and a few items are reproduced here. |
When you see one of these maps, the unusual material is probably the first thing you notice. They are printed, sometimes on both sides, on silk, rayon or even a fragile tissue paper. During World War II, hundreds of thousands of these maps were produced by the British. 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, if he evaded capture in the first place. A map like this could be concealed in a small place (a cigarette packet, 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 immersion in water and other wear and tear. 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 on a 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.) Some are standard military topographic maps printed on unorthodox materials. In addition to the maps, tiny compasses were provided, 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 illustrated above, designed for sending to prisoners, shows a route from Salzburg in Austria to Mojstrana in Yugoslavia (held by forces sympathetic to the Allies). It is slightly unusual in that it was obviously designed specifically as an escape map. The map itself appears to be copied from a German original, with surrounding text in English. The red route avoids the easy mountain passes and shows a harder but less populated way over the hills. The text panels give route directions and matter-of-fact advice about throwing stones at pursuers: "If pursued on open mountains, make for loose rocks which can be rolled... One near miss with a 10lb rock will often scare off a man..." |
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 MI9, the branch of the Secret Service responsible for escape and evasion, was set up. It was made clear that the duty of all those captured was to escape if possible. One man who was behind many of MI9's most ingenious plans, including the Waddington project, was Christopher Clayton-Hutton. He regarded a map as "the escaper's most important accessory." Miniature compasses and maps printed on silk were amongst his first projects. 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--as well as the maps. 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 here 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 because 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 be sent to the camps. They began by printing silk maps for supply to air crew, 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. There are references to different-coloured playing cards, for example, made in one of the letters, which 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 are used to identify them, although exactly what the Emerald, Double Eagle or Dutch Girl pictures were does not appear to be recorded here. The very first letter from the collection (reproduced here) seems to be the only one to mention the word "maps," and even this makes a cryptic reference to dispatching "small metal instruments" but avoids using the word "compasses," which is presumably what they were. One letter refers cryptically to "ideas on the lines you and I know of," and parcels are sent to the left luggage office at Kings Cross Station rather than directly to the War Office. Another letter 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 of northern France inside. |
It is impossible to know how many of the maps smuggled into the camps were found or used. But it is known that more than 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. |
The prisoners' press
While Waddington and the War Office were plotting to get maps into the POW camps, the prisoners themselves demonstrated astonishing resourcefulness. The Map Library is fortunate to have acquired some maps printed by POWs on a homemade printing press virtually under the noses of their German guards, as well as accounts of the process by two of the prisoners involved, Philip Evans and Wallis Heath. From 1944 until the end of the war they were both held at a POW camp in Querum, just outside Braunschweig (known in English as Brunswick). Evans was a printer by trade and was most heavily involved in the printing project. A few maps smuggled into the camp would be of little use to the 3,000 men inside, and some method of reproducing more was highly desirable. |
Philip Evans's matter-of-fact account of life as a POW and the map printing process carried out under extremely difficult conditions is truly inspiring. It also highlights the boredom of captivity which provided further motivation for the production of the maps; the desire for purposeful activity must have been almost as strong as the need for maps. Wallis Heath also mentions the general fear that the war would end with complete anarchy and every man for himself, especially following the attempt on Hitler's life by a group of German Army officers in 1944. Evans was inspired to try to produce the maps after realising that some wall tiles from a bombed building in the camp could be used as printing plates. The tiles were made of a limestone suitable to be used as a lithographic stone. |
Inside the camps, the prisoners had a well-organised (and completely secret) structure for planning escape and general insurrection, and subversive activities were carried on under its authority. Evans presented his idea to this initially sceptical group who soon realised its potential value and helped by providing him with a guarded room and various assistants. A camp of such a size contained someone who knew something about almost anything, including cartographers, carpenters and chemists, although one of the most useful men was described by Evans as a "fixer," a natural entrepreneur who could obtain almost anything by bribery. |
The technical problems of improvising printing plates, pens, inks and a press, in secret and out of very limited materials, were considerable. All the information on the maps had to be drawn on by hand, in "mirror writing," of course, using homemade wooden pens and melted margarine. The plates were treated with jelly from Red Cross parcels, and the printing press itself was made of oak floorboards. A roller was fashioned from a window bar covered with leather, and ink was made from pitch scraped from between the flagstones of the pavement, boiled to separate out the dirt and mixed with margarine and pigment. After much trial and error, a satisfactory method was developed and efficient teams of four worked together on map production. |
The standard of the resulting maps is astonishing given the circumstances. The information for the more detailed maps of the area around the camp was obtained partly by reconnaissance by temporary escapees and partly from a map of the area obtained by the fixer. Smaller-scale maps were copied from smuggled silk maps like the one reproduced here (from the Waddington archive). |
Perhaps inevitably, the map printers were eventually discovered, lost some of their precious equipment and a few half-finished maps, and were punished with five days in solitary confinement. This was not before four different maps had been produced, up to 500 copies of some of them. |
This prisoners' press was not unique, and attempts were made in other camps to copy maps by hand, but it is a remarkable demonstration of resourcefulness and dedication in the most discouraging circumstances. When the war ended, very few of the maps were in fact used as the camp's inmates were transported safely home. A few individuals had attempted to escape from the camp and had taken copies of the maps with them, but how many got home will probably never be known. |
Research for this article was drawn from the following publications: Evans, P. Radcliffe, "The Brunswick Map Printers." Printing Review, Special Cartographic Number, Winter 1951-2. Bond, Barbara, "Silk maps: the story of MI9's excursion into the world of cartography 1939-45." The Cartographic Journal 21 (1984) 141-144. Bond, Barbara, "Maps printed on silk." The Map Collector 22 (1983) 10-13. Clayton-Hutton, Christopher, Official Secret: The Remarkable Story of Escape Aids, Their Invention, Production and the Sequel. London: Max Parrish, 1960. Copyright The British Library. |
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