Escape Kits Hid Maps in Playing Cards, Board Games, and Cloth

Some POW escape aids were disguised with an inventiveness that bordered on stagecraft.

Escape and evasion required geography as much as bravery. Concealed aids included silk maps, tiny compasses, and cleverly disguised items hidden in ordinary-looking objects. The ingenuity mattered because searches were routine and paper maps were noisy, bulky, and fragile. Silk folded small, resisted water, and made almost no sound. The hidden-world fascination here is hard to resist: war generated not only tanks and bombers, but magicians’ props for prisoners dreaming of the next fence line.