The War Magician: The Man who conjured Victory in the Desert.

The War Magician

The Man who conjured Victory in the Desert

By David Fisher

[pounds sterling]16.99 Weidenfeld & Nicolson

ISBN 0-297-84635-3

Jasper Maskelyne is a forgotten hero. He was the greatest magician and illusionist of modern times, and was world-famous in the 1930s. When WWII broke out he volunteered his services to the British army--confident that his magic would give the allied forces a real edge in battle. And so it did.

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Maskelyne was sent to Egypt where the German Afrika Korps was threatening to break through and capture Cairo. German bombers were launching nightly raids on the vital port of Alexandria where British supplies came ashore, so Maskelyne created a fake harbour to lure away the attackers. Leading a team of stage-hands, camouflage experts and other volunteers, he used his illusionist methods to 'disappear' the entire Suez Canal from German bombers.

Maskelyne matched magic trick with magic trick in a game of wits with Arab leaders poised to betray the British position in Egypt. He put on a show inside the Royal Palace in Cairo to track down a hidden German transmitter, a high-risk operation that demanded the skills of a cat burglar as well as the stagecraft of a magician. When not taking part in intelligence and deception missions he put his brilliant mind to work inventing concealed weapons and espionage tools--exactly the same sort of devious kit issued by James Bond's 'Q'.

Maskelyne's war culminated in the brilliant deception plan that won the Battle of El Alamein. He created an entire dummy army in the middle of the desert under the eyes of the German forces who thought they knew every deception trick in the book.