Jasper Maskelyne was a British magician who managed to deceive the German army and help the Allies win World War II with the gigantic illusions he created. He was born in London in 1902, as the child of a well-established family of magicians.
His grandfather, John Nevil Maskelyne, was the inventor of the classic levitation trick that is still popular today.
At the beginning of World War II, Jasper joined the "Royal Engineers", a unit of the British army. He told his unit superiors that his special skills could be useful in winning the war. His commanders were skeptical until he created the illusion of a German battleship on the River Thames using mirrors and a cardboard model.
Jasper was sent to Cairo to work for military intelligence. There, he created “smart devices” that would help soldiers escape if they were captured. These “life-saving tricks” included saws inside combos or maps hidden in playing cards.
Jasper Maskelyne (29 September 1902 – 15 March 1973) was a British stage magician in the 1930s and 1940s. He was one of an established family of stage magicians, the son of Nevil Maskelyne and a grandson of John Nevil Maskelyne. He is most remembered for his accounts of his work for the British military during the Second World War, in which he claimed to have created large-scale ruses, deception, and camouflage in an effort to defeat the Nazis.
In 1941, Jasper was assigned to a new "deception department" known as "A Force". He immediately assembled a group of skilled tradespeople, including a carpenter, electrician, architect, set designer, artist, and art restorer. They called themselves the "Magic Gang".
The first thing the “Gang” did was to disguise the army vehicles using painted tarpaulins and plywood to make the jeeps look like tanks and the tanks look like jeeps. Then, they focused on a much larger project. This was to protect the port in Alexandria from attacks by German air forces.
Lost port
Incredibly, Jasper and the "Magic Gang" created a non-existent harbor near the Port of Alexandria using fake ships and houses made of mud and cardboard. Afterward, they burned the fake one and extinguished all the lights of the real port. During a German raid, Jasper planted bombs in the dummy harbor. The Germans were confused, they assumed the other pilots had hit the target. Thus, the Germans protected the real port of Alexandria by firing their missiles into the fake port.
Jasper's next project was about the Suez Canal. Instructions were given to increase anti-aircraft lights around the Canal so that British soldiers could see Nazi planes in the dark. Instead, Jasper created a rotating mirror cone that turns regular lights into strobe lights. This surprised the German pilots and caused them to crash into each other.
The “Magic Gang”’s greatest illusion occurred during the Battle of El Alamein in July 1942. German Marshal Erwin Rommel conquered a large part of North Africa. British Marshal Bernard Montgomery wanted to take back the Egyptian town of El Alamein on the Mediterranean coast.
This time, Jasper's job was to convince the Germans that the Allied attack was coming from the south rather than the north. He and his team made the 1,000 tanks in the north look like normal trucks. Meanwhile, they produced 2,000 fake tanks in the south. While Montgomery attacked the north, Jasper and his gang used sound effects and other illusions to mislead the Germans, leading them south. The Allies won the war – the first decisive victory over the Axis powers in North Africa.
After the Battle of El Alamein, the "Magic Gang" disbanded. It is not entirely clear what Maskelyne did for the rest of the war. Some say that he was assigned to entertain soldiers with magic tricks during this period, while others claim that his talents were utilized in more important places.
After the war, he moved to Kenya with his second wife, Mary, in 1948. He bought a farm here and gave magic lessons to residents and tourists. In 1949, he wrote a book called "Magic: Top Secret." Although it was claimed that his book could be a work of fiction, people always appreciated his contribution to winning the war. Given the secrecy of some aspects of World War II, it seems unlikely that we will know how much of the story is true any time soon. Under British official intelligence laws, the full story of the "Magic Gang" will only be revealed to the public in 2046.
Jasper Maskelyne's achievements during the war inspired many people. His exploits were detailed in a book titled "The War Magician" written by David Fisher in 1983. A movie called "War Magician" was made, based on Fisher's best-selling novel and focusing on the life of Jasper Maskelyne.