Jasper Maskelyne

Jasper Maskelyne (* 1902 ; † 1973 in Kenya ) was a British stage magician in the 1930s and 1940s.

Jasper Maskelyne came from a family of established stage wizards, he was the son of Nevil Maskelyne and the grandson of John Nevil Maskelyne . His ancestry can be traced back to the court astronomer Nevil Maskelyne (1732-1811).

In the Anglo-Saxon region he is referred to as a War Magician because he used his knowledge for the British Military Intelligence (MI) in World War II . Field Marshal Rommel is said to have been deceived during the battle for El Alamein .

Life

According to the autobiography Magic: Top Secret (1949) and the controversial "biography" The War Magician by David Fisher (1983), Maskelyne enlisted in the Royal Engineers , a technical support corps for the British Army , when World War II broke out in 1939 . After he managed to convince some skeptical officers of its usefulness, it was eventually relocated to North Africa. There he spent most of his time entertaining the British troops.

In January 1941, General Archibald Wavell founded the A-Force unit , the aim of which was to confuse the opposing troops and lure them on the wrong track. Maskelyne, who was assigned to this unit, founded the Magic Gang , a group of 14 employees with knowledge of chemistry , electrical engineering and set design . Their activities consisted, among other things, in masking tanks as harmless trucks and vice versa, as well as building up pseudo armies and alleged warships to mislead the German attackers.

One of the main achievements of the Magic Gang in 1941 was the diversion of the German aircraft from their actual target Alexandria to a nearby bay , where mock-ups of a port including lighthouse , buildings and air defense were erected. At the same time, the Suez Canal was provided with an elaborate construction of headlights and mirrors to confuse the attacking aircraft.

A year later, in September 1942, the Magic Gang was involved in the Battle of El Alamein , which decisively weakened Field Marshal Rommel and his troops and ultimately forced them to withdraw from North Africa. The plan of the British General Bernard Montgomery was to attack the German troops from the north, but first to simulate an attack from the south. To this end, around 1,000 tanks were masked as trucks in the north, while mock-ups of around 2,000 tanks were built in the south, including pyrotechnic effects. To make the dummies more believable, a railway line was also constructed, fake radio transmissions were broadcast and a simulated water pipe was built that was easily observable by the German troops. Based on the status of this construction work, they expected an attack in November at the earliest and were caught unprepared for the actual attack on October 23.

After this battle, the Magic Gang disbanded and Maskelyne's military career was over. He never got any official recognition for his achievements in the war. Since an attempt to continue his career as a stage magician was not very successful, he moved to Kenya , where he founded a driving school .

Doubts about this representation

The Australian military historian and magician Richard Stokes has critically examined this representation. In a series of 21 articles, which he wrote for the Australian magazine Geniis Magic Journal from 1993 to 1995 , he found many temporal inaccuracies and unsubstantiated events. He concluded that the depictions of Maskelyne's achievements in the war had been greatly supplemented by fictional elements, in particular the autobiography Magic: Top Secret , which was written by a ghostwriter . The latter is one of around 200 publications of alleged war adventurers. David Fisher's novel The War Magician turned out to be almost unresearched lurid fiction.

Books by and about Jasper Maskelyne

• Jasper Maskelyne: White Magic , 1936 - Maskelynes Family History
• Jasper Maskelyne: Magic: Top Secret , 1949 - Ghost-written account of Maskelyne's military activities
• David Fisher: The War Magician , 1983

Web links

• Channel4 Jasper Maskelyne
• Jasper Maskelyne, Master of Make-Believe: Article by Richard Stokes online (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Mark Montgomery (producer): The War Illusionist (documentary, English, USA), The History Channel 2006