Jasper Maskelyne (1902–1973) was a
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
stage magician in the 1930s and 1940s. He was one of an established family of stage magicians, the son of
Nevil MaskelyneNevil Maskelyne was a British magician and inventor. The son of magician John Nevil Maskelyne, he continued his father's work at the Egyptian Hall in London...
and a grandson of
John Nevil MaskelyneJohn Nevil Maskelyne was an English stage magician and inventor of the pay toilet as well as many other important Victorian inventions...
. He could also trace his ancestry to the royal astronomer
Nevil MaskelyneThe Reverend Dr Nevil Maskelyne FRS was the fifth English Astronomer Royal. He held the office from 1765 to 1811.-Biography:...
. He is most remembered, however, for the accounts of his work for British military intelligence during the Second World War, creating large-scale ruses, deception, and camouflage.
Wartime trickery
According to the autobiographical
Magic: Top Secret and David Fisher's biography , Maskelyne's wartime career was as follows.
Maskelyne joined the
Royal EngineersThe Corps of Royal Engineers, usually just called the Royal Engineers , and commonly known as the Sappers, is one of the corps of the British Army. It provides combat engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces...
when the Second World War broke out, thinking that his skills could be used in
camouflageCamouflage is a method of crypsis that allows an otherwise visible organism or object to remain indiscernible from the surrounding environment through deception. Examples include a tiger's stripes and the battledress of a modern soldier...
. He convinced skeptical officers by creating the illusion of a German warship on the Thames using mirrors and a model. He was eventually deployed to the African theatre in the Western Desert, although he spent most of his time entertaining the troops.
In January 1941, General Archibald Wavell created
A ForceMI9, the British Military Intelligence Section 9, was a department of the British Directorate of Military Intelligence, part of the War Office, during World War II...
for subterfuge and counterintelligence. Maskelyne was assigned to serve in it and gathered a group of 14 assistants, including an architect, art restorer, carpenter, chemist, electrical engineer, electrician, painter, and stage-set builder. It was nicknamed the Magic Gang.
The Magic Gang built a number of tricks. They used painted canvas and plywood to make
jeepJeep is an automobile marque of Chrysler. It is the oldest off-road vehicle brand, with Land Rover coming in second. The original vehicle which first appeared as the prototype Bantam BRC became the primary light 4-wheel-drive vehicle of the US Army and allies during the World War II and postwar...
s look like tanks — with fake tank tracks — and tanks look like trucks. They created illusions of armies and battleships.
His largest trick was to conceal
AlexandriaAlexandria , with a population of 4.1 million, is the second-largest city in Egypt, and is the country's largest seaport, serving about 80% of Egypt's imports and exports...
and the
Suez CanalThe Suez Canal is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. Opened on November 1869, it allows water transportation between Europe and Asia without navigating around Africa...
to misdirect German bombers. He built a mockup of the night-lights of Alexandria in a bay three miles away with fake buildings,
lighthouseA lighthouse is a tower, building, or framework designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses or, in older times, from a fire and used as an aid to navigation and to pilots at sea....
, and anti-aircraft batteries. To mask the Suez Canal he built a revolving cone of mirrors that created a wheel of spinning light nine miles wide, meant to dazzle and disorient enemy pilots so that their bombs would fall off-target.
In 1942 he worked in Operation Bertram, before the
battle of El AlameinThe Second Battle of El Alamein marked a major turning point in the Western Desert Campaign of World War II. The battle lasted from 23 October to 5 November 1942. The First Battle of El Alamein had stalled the Axis advance...
. His task was to make German Field Marshal
Erwin RommelErwin Johannes Eugen Rommel , was perhaps the most famous German Field Marshal of World War II....
think that the attack was coming from the south when British General Bernard Montgomery planned to attack from the north. In the north, 1,000 tanks were disguised as trucks. On the south, the Magic Gang created 2,000 fake tanks with convincing pyrotechnics. There was a fake railway line, fake radio conversations, and fake sounds of construction. They also built a fake water pipeline and made it look as if it would never be ready before attack.
The Magic Gang was disbanded after the battle and, although
Winston ChurchillSir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill KG, OM, CH, TD, FRS, PC was a British politician known chiefly for his leadership of the United Kingdom during World War II. He served as Prime Minister from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. A noted statesman and orator, Churchill was also an officer...
praised his efforts, Maskelyne did not receive the appreciation he desired. Maskelyne tried to resume his stage career after the war without much success. He moved to
KenyaThe Republic of Kenya is a country in East Africa. Lying along the Indian Ocean, at the equator, Kenya is bordered by Ethiopia , Somalia , Tanzania , Uganda plus Lake Victoria , and Sudan . The capital city is Nairobi. Kenya spans an area about 85% the size of France or Texas...
and founded a driving school.
A report in
The Guardian of June 28, 2002, was more blunt: "Maskelyne received no official recognition. For a vain man this was intolerable and he died an embittered drunk. It gives his story a poignancy without which it would be mere chest-beating."
Jasper Maskelyne died in 1973.
Doubts about war time career
The standard Maskelyne account has been critically analysed by the military historian and magician Richard Stokes. In a 21-article series originally written in 1993-95 for the Australian magic magazine
Geniis Magic Journal, Stokes documents many chronological inaccuracies and unsubstantiated events, concluding that Maskelyne's wartime exploits have been heavily fictionalised, particularly via the ghost-written
Magic: Top Secret. Stokes has created a
website where he has posted these articles and related materials.
Stokes also points out the existence of two Maskelyne genealogies, casting doubt that the line of magicians was descended from the astronomer Nevil Maskelyne.
Other activities
Before the Second World War Jasper Maskelyne was a "blaster" of the Ancient Order of Froth Blowers, a charitable parody of the
FreemasonsFreemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around 5 million, including just under two million in the United States and around 480,000 in...
that operated from 1926-31. His lodge (called a Vat) ran from Maskelyne's Theatre.
Books of Jasper Maskelyne
- White Magic (1936) — Maskelyne family history
- Magic: Top Secret (1949) — ghost-written account of his WW2 exploits
Further reading
- Latimer, Jon, Deception in War, London: John Murray, 2001. A factual account of 'A' Force and its development.
- Salisse, John & Davenport, Anne. A Candid View of Maskelyne's 1916-1917 (1995).
- Salisse, John & Davenport, Anne. St. George's Hall (2002).
External links