“Monopoly X,” written by game historian Philip E. Orbanes, reveals a long-held secret about a popular game. During World War II, hidden compartments were cut into Monopoly game boards to hold an assortment of critical escape tools for Allied prisoners of war. The innovators behind this brilliant ploy – along with a cast of brave resistance fighters, nimble spies, determined soldiers, and one dastardly traitor – prove that stories with the sweep and thrill of cinema continue to emerge from the oft-studied conflict.
The Monitor recently talked with Mr. Orbanes via video call about his decadeslong effort to bring this account of creativity, courage, and derring-do into the light. The conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
Who came up with the idea to embed escape tools into Monopoly game boxes?
Why We Wrote This
Much has been written about the heroism of Allied troops during World War II. Less well known is the role that a popular board game played in helping POWs escape from German prison camps.
It was the brainchild of a former magician in London named Christopher [William] “Clutty” Clayton-Hutton. He was working for a new, top-secret British organization known simply as MI9, which stands for Military Intelligence 9. His mission in 1940 and ’41 was to figure out two things. First, how to help downed airmen over the continent evade Germans searching for them and get back to England. So, what can I provide that the British airmen can have sewn into their uniforms that will aid them? And then his second mission was: How can I get escape aids to my POWs who are in German prison camps that they can use to escape?
The first necessity was a map … but not just any map, because paper maps have serious defects. What you really need is a map printed on silk. There happened to be only one company in the United Kingdom that was skilled at printing on silk. And it just so happened to also be the company that made and sold Monopoly throughout the U.K.: John Waddington Ltd. in Leeds. So Clutty arranged for Waddingtons to print thousands of these maps for British airmen.
To tackle his second problem, he realized that Waddingtons, which had proven itself to be a highly reliable company that kept secrets, that he could go to them and say, “I would like to experiment with you to hide escape aids inside Monopoly game boards to send to POWs.” And Waddingtons delivered.
Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
What was the resulting design?
In the Monopoly game board, if I open it up, there’s nothing to give away the fact that inside [under the label] all these compartments have been carved. And each compartment permits whatever is going to be packed into it to be flush with the game label. So if you were to put your hand over it, you would feel nothing.
So you had the map hidden inside, but also you had, probably most importantly, money. It could be used for bribes, but also you were always advised if you made an escape, to head for the nearest rail station. Buy a ticket and get the heck out of the area as quickly as you can because if you did, the odds of you staying free were vastly increased.
The game also included German documents that you might need to show on the train. And, ingeniously, a compass. Now the compass had to be very small to fit in the game board – not even as big as my fingertip. And if you had one of these compasses, you could figure out which direction was north – and if you looked at your map, you would know which way to go. Your goal was always to find an
“escape-line” worker. And you did that typically by going to a town where you were advised you should head and either speaking to a farmer or to a clergyman. They knew the escape-line workers in the area who would connect you.
The escape-line worker would take care of any injuries and feed you and change your clothes – because you obviously would be noticed if you didn’t look like a typical person on the street – and then arrange for you to get to the Pyrenees. A guide would take you over the Pyrenees and from Spain you went to Gibraltar and from Gibraltar you’d get on a ship back to England.
This story is packed with heroic characters – spies, soldiers, rescuers, innovators. Did you have a favorite, someone who stood out for their courage and character?
I was always sympathetic to [spy and escape-line helper] Benoîte Jean, who was a very deep mystery. She actually was the part of the story that was told to me first. I learned of her and the fact that she and her husband were probably Cold War spies as well, which is why so little is known about her and why her name is an alias. Her actual heroics were genuine, and they were related to me by someone who knew this for a fact.
The one character who I think is the greatest hero in the story is Airey Neave. Not only was he the first to successfully escape, but after he returned to England, he joined MI9 and headed up a subset called Room 900. His mission was to aid the escape lines in France – to provide them with the equipment they needed, financing, and to help make sure they cooperated because they had just been loosey-goosey prior to his arrival. So, for the entirety of the war, he helped other POWs escape as he had. And then he went into British politics and became fairly important until his tragic assassination in 1979. Airey Neave really was quite the hero.
Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
You write, “Somehow this and other objects of pure fun … overmatched the power and fury of dictatorship, wretched ideology, and inhumane brutality.” Would you say more about the power of fun in this story?
I think one of the reasons why Monopoly avoided suspicion by the German censors in every camp – the important thing to establish here is it was never discovered; it wasn’t even suspected – was that German culture was favorable to games. It respected games as a legitimate form of both competition and enjoyment. And the Germans who were responsible for the POW camps decided that games were a good thing and they should be let in. If you were a POW and you were playing a game, you were content and you weren’t thinking about escaping. So it was a wonderful diversion.
Fun is not trivial. It takes your mind off of your problems and gives you a fresh start when you return to them. And that’s very important; it’s refreshing. You also learn a great deal about your fellow game players.
Good British estimates are that a total of 11,000 American and British POWs successfully escaped POW camps thanks to escape aids, primarily in Monopoly, of which 1,596 did get back to England. Now, even though the majority of them were recaptured, they were invaluable to the war effort because they diverted German resources toward their recapture.
What are your personal connections to World War II and this story?
I always had such a fascination with World War II because my father, all of his friends, my uncles, and their associates had all served. Most people today would find it incomprehensible that there were 16 million American service men and women during the war. So for me, growing up in the early 1950s and becoming aware of this, it wasn’t unusual. This was the aftermath of the Great War that we won – the sense of pride and patriotism, the belief in God, these were all unquestioned. And I was so proud to be growing up in this environment.
When I became an adult, I never lost that interest. I continued to pursue more and more knowledge. And a lot of the people who contributed to “Monopoly X” detected that in me; they knew I wasn’t just doing this for the sake of writing a story.
What role can these accounts of perseverance and ingenuity play for readers today?
We all stand on the shoulders of these people. We may not realize it, but if they were less committed, if they compromised, and if they didn’t serve on this country’s behalf, we would have a far different world today. We can always say that Germany and Japan were too small to conquer us, but if you don’t have the will, if you don’t have the resolution, if you don’t change overnight from isolationist to patriotic and determined to right the wrongs, then you can be undermined from within.
What’s your game token?
I judged Monopoly U.S., World, and Canadian Championships for a long, long time. I had the blessing of seeing the best players in the world. Among the champions, the favorites are usually the Scottie dog and the top hat. I noticed that the smaller, innocuous tokens might just be the best choices. So when I played years ago, I always chose the thimble.
