Wartime service[edit]

An inflatable dummy Sherman tank, one of many deceptions that Maskelyne claimed to have created

Maskelyne entertains Indian Army officers and civilian VIP's being at Mena House in Cairo, 19 April
1942.

Maskelyne joined the Royal Engineers when the Second World War broke out, thinking that his
skills could be used in camouflage. A story runs that he convinced skeptical officers by creating
the illusion of a German warship on the Thames using mirrors and a model. [5]
Maskelyne was trained at the Camouflage Development and Training Centre at Farnham
Castle in 1940. He found the training boring, asserting in his book that "a lifetime of hiding
things on the stage" had taught him more about camouflage "than rabbits and tigers will ever
know".[6] The camoufleur Julian Trevelyan commented that he "entertained us with his tricks in
the evenings" at Farnham, but that Maskelyne was "rather unsuccessful" at actually
camouflaging "concrete pill-boxes".[7]
Brigadier Dudley Clarke, the head of the 'A' Force deception department, recruited Maskelyne
to work for MI9 in Cairo. He created small devices intended to assist soldiers to escape if
captured and lectured on escape techniques.[8] These included tools hidden in cricket bats, saw
blades inside combs, and small maps on objects such as playing cards.[8]
Maskelyne was then briefly a member of Geoffrey Barkas's camouflage unit at Helwan, near
Cairo, which was set up in November 1941. He was made head of the subsidiary "Camouflage
Experimental Section" at Abbassia. By February 1942 it became clear that this command was
not successful, and so he was "transferred to welfare"—in other words, to entertaining soldiers
with magic tricks.[7][9][10] Peter Forbes writes that the "flamboyant" magician's contribution was [10]
either absolutely central (if you believe his account and that of his biographer) or very marginal
(if you believe the official records and more recent research). [10]
His nature was "to perpetuate the myth of his own inventive genius, and perhaps he even
believed it himself".[10] However, Clarke had encouraged Maskelyne to take credit for two
reasons: as cover for the true inventors of the dummy machinery and to encourage confidence
in these techniques amongst Allied high command.[8]
Maskelyne's book about his exploits, Magic: Top Secret, ghost-written, was published in 1949.
Forbes describes it as lurid, with "extravagant claims of cities disappearing, armies re-locating,
dummies proliferating (even submarines)—all as a result of his knowledge of the magic arts".
Further, Forbes notes, the biography of Maskelyne by David Fisher was "clearly under the
wizard's spell".[10] In his book, Maskelyne claims his team produced[11]
dummy men, dummy steel helmets, dummy guns by the ten thousand, dummy tanks, dummy
shell flashes by the million, dummy aircraft...[11]

Jasper Maskelyne and his magic troupe departing from Nairobi in 1950. Jasper Maskelyne is on the
right, touching the arm of Yvonne Helliwell, his stage assistant.

Doubts raised[edit]
A study by Richard Stokes argues that much of the story concerning the involvement of
Maskelyne in counterintelligence operations as described in the book Magic: Top Secret was
pure invention and that no unit called the "Magic Gang" ever existed. Maskelyne's role in the
deception war was marginal.[12][13]
Christian House, reviewing Rick Stroud's book The Phantom Army of Alamein in The
Independent, describes Maskelyne as "one of the more grandiose members" of the Second
World War desert camouflage unit and "a chancer tasked with experimental developments,
who fogged his own reputation as much as any desert convoy". [14][15]
David Hambling, writing on Wired,[16] critiques David Fisher's uncritical acceptance of
Maskelyne's stories: "A very colourful account of Maskelyne's role is given in the book The
War Magician—reading it you might think he won the war single-handed". Hambling denies
Maskelyne's supposed concealment of the Suez Canal: "[I]n spite of the book's claims, the
dazzle light[s] were never actually built (although a prototype was once tested)". [16]
In the book on WW2 deception, Ghosts of the ETO by Jonathan Gawne it was explained how
Maskelyne was not responsible for all the deception work that was claimed and that Dudley
Clarke deserves the lion share of any credit.
The film director Peter Weir with actor Tom Cruise was working on a film based on the life of
Jasper Maskelyne starting in 2003. When it became apparent that the stories about Maskelyne
in the book "The War Magician" were without enough factual basis to proceed, the film project
was dropped after large sums of money had been spent in pre-production. The story continues
to attract attention as a movie subject. In 2015 Benedict Cumberbatch was reported as signing
on to play the role, provided a director could be found. [17]
In 2002 The Guardian wrote: "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". [18]