Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Boba bam here. In most wars,
Speaker 1: bullets and bombs tend to steal the show. But knitting
Speaker 1: is also a weapon, and a wiley one at that.
Speaker 1: And no, it's not because of the sharp needles. For centuries,
Speaker 1: wartime knitting has conjured shadowy powers in secret knitted codes,
Speaker 1: encrypted messages crafted directly into the stitches of garments that
Speaker 1: were passed along to allies who decrypted the strands and
Speaker 1: then planned their responses accordingly. The practice, which is technically
Speaker 1: called stagonography, has actually been around for thousands of years.
Speaker 1: It refers to the act of hiding secret messages in
Speaker 1: ordinary items so as not to arouse suspicion. With enough
Speaker 1: expertise and calm nerves, a clever person could pass along
Speaker 1: detailed messages right under the noses of even the most
Speaker 1: intelligent adversary. To under and how codes are crafted into knitting,
Speaker 1: you need a bit of handicraft background. We spoke with
Speaker 1: Melissa Camerer, co creator of Nomadic Knits, knitting and Culture magazine.
Speaker 1: She said knitting is made up of different stitches, the
Speaker 1: most common of which are the knit and pearl. At
Speaker 1: its simplest relatable to binary code, knit stitches are flat
Speaker 1: and resemble the letter V, while pearl stitches are horizontal bumps.
Speaker 1: In essence, that means anyone with the right skills and
Speaker 1: knitting prowess could learn to hide messages in fabric, and
Speaker 1: there are infinite ways to do so. For example, you
Speaker 1: could conceal numbers or text as Morse code, which uses
Speaker 1: a series of basic dashes and dots to relay information.
Speaker 1: By alternating these two stitches to produce Morse code, the
Speaker 1: knitter could send encrypted messages through something like an innocent
Speaker 1: looking sweater. The message sender could pass along the garment
Speaker 1: to an undercover agent who would interpret the code and
Speaker 1: send along the message to headquarters. Non knitting, as many
Speaker 1: soldiers have tended to be, would likely not notice anything
Speaker 1: unusual about a piece of knitting. Camera explained, Knit and
Speaker 1: pearl stitches are regularly used together in patterns to create
Speaker 1: a variety of common textures. A picture. The ribbing on
Speaker 1: the hems and cuffs of a sweater and the odd
Speaker 1: pearl bump hidden in a pattern of knit stitches could
Speaker 1: easily be overlooked, or, if noticed, assumed to be part
Speaker 1: of the intended patterning. Even when more noticeable stitches were
Speaker 1: used to encode a message into the garment, it would
Speaker 1: appear to the uneducated eye to simply be a mistake.
Speaker 1: Experienced knitters can spot any variation in stitches right away,
Speaker 1: especially when knowing where to look. But even though knitting
Speaker 1: was seemingly an easy way to create a secret message,
Speaker 1: why bother? After all, the early twentieth century saw a
Speaker 1: boom in long distance communications technologies well because knitting was
Speaker 1: a common sight during many wars during this time, and
Speaker 1: so it was the perfect cover. Women could thus conduct
Speaker 1: their intelligence activities in broad daylight without raising suspicion. For example,
Speaker 1: as World War One dragged on, Belgian intelligence agents made
Speaker 1: friends with elderly women who lived near railway stations. Conveniently,
Speaker 1: these women had windows in their homes that overlooked train tracks.
Speaker 1: They surreptitiously asked these women, who perhaps looked too old
Speaker 1: and innocent to be suspected as spies, to monitor passing
Speaker 1: Imperial Germany's train movements. Those who agreed to help followed
Speaker 1: a system that required them to diligently watch for passing
Speaker 1: trains as they knitted throughout the day that pearl a
Speaker 1: stitch when they saw an artillery train, or if a
Speaker 1: troop railcar passed, they'd drop a stitch, a meaning they'd
Speaker 1: leave a hole in the pattern. A generation later, during
Speaker 1: World War Two, those themes continued, Kemmer said, along with
Speaker 1: victory gardens and scrap metal drives. Knitting warm clothing for
Speaker 1: the men and boys was a way to lift morale
Speaker 1: on the home front, while contry beating to the war effort.
Speaker 1: Resources were scarce around the world. Countless supplies and factories
Speaker 1: were destroyed, leaving soldiers to rely on donations for precious
Speaker 1: basic necessities like socks and hats. And once again, that
Speaker 1: meant that knitting was a way for spies to hide
Speaker 1: in plain sight. So prolific was this sort of conspiratorial
Speaker 1: knitting during World War One that during World War Two
Speaker 1: authorities took action to slow the spread of knitting patterns.
Speaker 1: Kemmer said, while hundreds of thousands of knitters were tasked
Speaker 1: with practical knitting, dozens of brave women used their knitting
Speaker 1: to discreetly smuggle military intelligence in secrets. If caught, these
Speaker 1: brave women faced imprisonment or execution. During World War Two,
Speaker 1: both the United States and the UK banned the printing
Speaker 1: and posting of written knitting patterns as their repetitive abbreviations
Speaker 1: could easily be ciphered into codes, but they could hardly
Speaker 1: ban the act of knitting itself. Codes aside. Knitting was
Speaker 1: also just a wildly bit of subterfuge. After all, who
Speaker 1: suspects an innocent knitter of nefarious deeds? As it turns out,
Speaker 1: one of the most famous characters of World War Two
Speaker 1: posed as a crafty type. On May one four, a
Speaker 1: British spy by the name of Phyllis Littore Doyle parachuted
Speaker 1: into Normandy. She was a highly trained agent taking part
Speaker 1: in a clandestine Special Operations executive plan to develop resistance
Speaker 1: against the Nazi forces that were occupying France. Her weapon
Speaker 1: of choice not daggers or bullets, but knitting, more specifically,
Speaker 1: the detailed secret codes that she hid in her knitting.
Speaker 1: She roamed the countryside, pretending to be a teenager, Always
Speaker 1: helpful and talkative with German troops, she managed to gather
Speaker 1: many bits of information, ultimately sending a hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: five coded messages before the Allies finally liberated the country.
Speaker 1: She told New Zealand Army News in two thousand nine.
Speaker 1: I always carried knitting because my codes were on a
Speaker 1: piece of silk. I had about two thousand I could use.
Speaker 1: When I used a code, I would just pinprick it
Speaker 1: to indicate it had gone. I wrapped the piece of
Speaker 1: silk around a knitting needle and put it in a
Speaker 1: flat shoelace, which I used to tie my hair up.
Speaker 1: Even when she was shaken down by suspicious German intelligence officers,
Speaker 1: her system was perfect. They never found her coded evidence.
Speaker 1: Given the long history of whip smart knitters and knitted codes,
Speaker 1: it's safe to say, if you're ever in a war,
Speaker 1: never trust anyone carrying a bag of yarn. Today's episode
Speaker 1: was written by Nathan Chandler and produced by Tyler Clang.
Speaker 1: For more on this and lots of other pearls of wisdom,
Speaker 1: visit how Stuff works dot com. Brain Stuff is a
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