Waddingtons: How a Leeds business played a major part in executing the D-Day Landings during World War Two
Many remembering the D-Day Landings on its 80th anniversary will most likely think of the hundreds of boats landing in Normandy and carrying tens of thousands of soldiers ready to fight the Nazis.
And while their immense bravery and sacrifice is rightly at the forefront of peoples’ minds, a resident has highlighted the huge role that a Leeds business played in helping the Allied soldiers execute their mission.
Waddingtons was a Leeds-based board and card game printing business best known for bringing Monopoly to the UK.
But during the Second World War it turned its attention to supporting the country during the war effort and was responsible for printing the detailed maps that were used by the Allied forces during the D-Day Landings.
Maggie Graham and other relatives of those who ran the company in Leeds before it closed have been highlighting the company’s fascinating history on a Facebook page.
Mrs Graham explained how, in order to keep the choice of where the Allied Forces would land a closely guarded secret, Waddingtons was asked to print a number of different maps for different locations.
She said: “Only very few people knew until the 11th hour where the landing would take place so the company was asked to print maps for seven different locations.”
She shared a quote from Norman Watson, the then-managing director, who would later write: “We were printing maps for seven points on which the great landing might take place. Eventually it turned out to be Normandy but from memory the landing maps were of Heligoland, Antwerp, Zeebrugge, Normandy, the West Coast of France, Southern France near Marseilles and Northern Italy. “
Mrs Graham added that the maps were printed onto cloth so that soldiers could easily keep them hidden if they were captured by the Germans.
In his recollections, Mr Watson also stated: “It is worth recording that at the Normandy landing, whereas the Americans and the British used delightfully accurate maps printed at Wakefield Road (in Leeds) going far into France, Belgium, Holland and Germany, the German officers had to rely on the school maps which they picked up in French classrooms.”
Ceremonies marking the 80th anniversary of the D-Day Landings were held on Thursday in Leeds and across the country.