page_title: Christopher Hutton
section_title: Dispatching equipment
hierarchical_section_title: Christopher Hutton / Dispatching equipment
context_page_description: Christopher William Clayton Hutton a soldier, airman, journalist and inventor, was recruited as an intelligence officer to work for MI9, a branch of the British Military Intelligence, during the Second World War. Known as 'Clutty' to his friends, he was engaged towards the end of 1939 by the War Office to work under Major Norman Crockatt, in order to set up and run operations to create and distribute escape and evasion aids for Allied servicemen. Hutton's small team identified suitable manufacturers, ensured supplies and devised methods by which the concealed aids could be sent to prisoner of war camps.
  It is estimated that around 35,000 British and other Allied personnel managed to evade capture or escape from captivity and return to Allied territory. Many of these were assisted by MI9's silk maps and other escape and evasion equipment.
  Hutton achieved all of his wartime escape and evasion work despite shortages of materials such as silk and steel wire; he also overcame much bureaucratic obstruction. He was often in trouble with the police and with official supply authorities of various kinds, but was unreservedly backed by Crockatt.
context_section_description: The Geneva Convention allowed prisoners to receive parcels from families and relief organisations. Red Cross parcels were not used because of concerns that the enemy would not only stop these reaching the prisoners if they discovered hidden items, but also apply reprisals. Brigadier Crockatt, Hutton's chief, was very strict about this rule.
  By 1940, MI9 had established that it needed to smuggle maps, currency and escape aids into the prison camps in large quantities. The tactics and concealment methods were to be developed by Hutton's small technical team in collaboration with selected suppliers of maps, compasses, escape packs, clothing and various games sets and sports equipment. Accurate record-keeping of the activities, using card indexes, also played a vital part in the work.
  They invented fictitious cover organisations to ″donate″ relief parcels for dispatch to the camps. These included the Licensed Victuallers' Sports Association, the Prisoners' Leisure Hour Fund, the Ladies Knitting Circle and The Jigsaw Puzzle Club. Each of these donors had headed notepaper and realistic-looking fictitious addresses, often at blitzed premises. The black humourists included thinly-veiled encouraging texts, printed on the donors' enclosure letters. For example, a reference was made to ″The Golden Key″ in a letter enclosing books from a spoof vicarage. The Germans permitted the return of signed receipts for the parcels, facilitating the tracking of what was getting through and in what volume. At first, only genuine unmodified comfort aids were sent, so as to gauge the timing and successful receipt of consignments. Care was taken to match packing materials, such as old newspapers, with the alleged locations of the false donor organisations, and packaging was regularly altered to avoid suspicion. It took about three months for the first successes to be scored, enabling the delivery of ″naughty″ contents to begin.
  One of the earliest companies to help MI9 with the printing of the silk maps had been John Waddington & Co. of Leeds. They also held the licence in the UK of the US board game, Monopoly. Hence they were able to start manufacturing the boards with items secreted in them. Using Monopoly as a host carrier also enabled actual currency to be hidden within the Monopoly money. MI9 approached EMI, the gramophone record company, who according to Hutton were at first somewhat reluctant. A standard production process involved dry lamination, which made it easier to introduce maps within the records. 
  A system of coded correspondence with the camps enabled customised escape maps and currency to be produced and delivered on demand. The clue to a coded letter lay in the form of the date which, if abbreviated to numbers only, signified a coded message within the text. By December 1941, MI9 had established a network of over 900 coded letter writers in the PoW camps and the correspondence backwards and forwards between MI9 and the camps could reach over 100 in any single month. The escape kits are credited with helping 316 escape attempts from Colditz Castle, which saw 32 men make it back home, starting with Airey Neave and the Dutch officer, Toni Luteyn, who were the first officers to succeed in returning to the UK.
caption: Oflag IV-C, more commonly known as Colditz Castle
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