How Allied Fliers Used Monopoly to Escape From German POW Camps

http://www.warhistoryonline.com/featured-article/how-allied-fliers-used-monopoly-to-escape-from-german-pow-camps.html

by aaronbrethorst • 14 years ago

84 37 14 years ago

lostlogin4• 14 years ago

Great use and clever idea. However I'm not too sure I'm keen on the idea of using humanitarian groups to smuggle stuff to prisoners. It's important that independent groups have access to prisoners, and this is a sure fire way to get access limited. Not all wars have such clear good/bad camps.

alanctgardner23• 14 years ago

Its important to realize that we're looking at this retrospectively. Imagine if the headline was about Nazi POWs escaping custody with the help of rigged board games. I don't think its fair to sort combatants into 'good/bad camps'.

I totally agree about not militarizing groups like this. If you try to turn POWs into combatants, do they still have any protections? Its like having a brilliant scheme to dress a whole bunch of marines as field medics; at best it's unethical, at worst it puts real non-combatants at risk.

bdunbar3• 14 years ago

> I don't think its fair to sort combatants into 'good/bad camps'.

What's fair got to do with it? If there was ever a good/bad distinction between combatants, World War II was it.

The Axis powers were evil, don't doubt it.

philwelch2• 14 years ago

It's the duty of a POW to use every opportunity to escape.

Also, it turns out the medic thing goes the other way around--medics are frequently armed so you can't distinguish them from ordinary troops, because fairly frequently the medics are singled out to be shot at first.

chloraphil• 14 years ago

The article mentions that fake charities were set up specifically for this purpose.

alanctgardner23• 14 years ago

Can we trust that? If a long-standing group like the Red Cross were involved they'd hardly be shouting about it.

rmc• 14 years ago

This is a controversial action. It's still in use. Osama Bin. Laden was partially tracked down by a charity giving free vaccinations.

CamperBob22• 14 years ago

True, reminiscent of the CIA's trick of co-opting a vaccination program in Pakistan to gather DNA in the search for OBL: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/10/health/cia-vaccine-ruse-in...

It's amazing what we can do when we don't have to consider the consequences.

simonh• 14 years ago

And one of those consequences is that the Taliban are using the fake CIA vaccination programme as justification for murdering UN polio vaccination aid workers.

Good job CIA!

rdl2• 14 years ago

In this case it's even worse because I'm sure they did consider the consequences and went ahead anyway.

They had pretty high levels of proof without the DNA. The DNA was political ass-covering. Personally, I think they would have been better off going in, attacking a compound which had high assessment of being UBL's, potentially killing a couple of people if they were armed security and resisting (but, if it wasn't UBL, it's unlikely), and accepting the political fallout, vs. subverting the independence of the vaccine program.

Killing Osama is great, but eradicating polio may ultimately be more important long-term.

S4M• 14 years ago

I wonder why they destroyed the remaining games after the war. What was there to hide?

VLM• 14 years ago

Presumably the maps were made from confidential info with the help of Germans in their .mil and .gov... and if like clockwork we had to fight WWIII in the 1970s it would have helped to not blow the cover of those agents. Even more excitingly, in the short term, about 1/4 of those agents probably were allied with the USSR .mil and .gov by 1950, quite handy human intelligence.

Also having been in .mil, troops always have crazy stories that are blown off, but a large cache of rigged board games means POWs would probably never be able to play a board game again, which is a shame, so its vaguely humanitarian, although they must have realized the truth would eventually come out (like now). Its too bad, board games are nice for POWs, and now they can't have them...

antidoh• 14 years ago

"and now they can't have them..."

Actually they can. Print the board games on silk, and package the game in the board/silk.

gpcz• 14 years ago

From the movie "The Great Escape": "Ex-POWs asked filmmakers to exclude details about the help they received from their home countries, such as maps, papers, and tools hidden in gift packages, lest it jeopardize future POW escapes. The filmmakers complied." src: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Escape_%28film%29#Ada...

How Allied Fliers Used Monopoly to Escape From German POW Camps

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