Who was Jasper Maskelyne? Mr. Maskelyne was possibly the greatest unknown magician who ever lived. Did you think that David Copperfield making an elephant disappear was quite a trick, as they say, well you ain't seen anything yet? It's one thing to fool an audience but how about fooling an army or should I say air force? Jasper Maskelyne didn't fool around with small objects like elephants, but rather he made whole cities disappear like Alexandria in Egypt. Jasper didn't fool around with small objects, only very large ones.

Jasper Maskelyne was born in 1902 and was related to the famous 18th century astronomer Nevil Maskelyne. Magic seemed to be the trade his family loved. His grandfather was a famous magician, possibly the most famous in England at the time, his name was John Nevil Maskelyne. Jasper's father was Nevil Maskelyne another famous magician. How could Jasper resist the magic trade with relatives like that?

Jasper was very handsome and it didn't take him long to become a star in his own right. By the 1930s he was one of England's top magicians. Not only was he a magician but he also invented many of the gadgets he used to do his tricks. As the 1930s progressed, war clouds gathered over England. He felt he had to do something for his country, just being a showman was not enough for him.

A famous story (as famous as anything could be about Maskelyne) tells of Jasper's attempts to join the Army. He was asked what he thought he could contribute, and he replied that if he could fool an audience that was twenty feet away, he felt he could surely fool an army that was a mile away. He was tested by being told to hide a machine gun nest. No one could find it even when they were standing on top of it.

Maskelyne became a major in the British Camouflage Corps and assembled a unit called the magic gang. They would build dummy tanks and trucks to fool the enemy. Ingeniously they would also create things like phony tank tracks leading to the dummy tanks to enhance their realism along with realistic sound effects. Everyone in the magic gang had special skills that helped with this operation. Not only were dummy tanks created, but a system to disguise real tanks as trucks was implemented. Truly this was practical magic.

All this was child's play to Maskelyne however. He was now asked to figure out some way of stopping German bombers from bombing Alexandria. Could a magician face a greater challenge? He leapt to the challenge and created many dummy buildings including a lighthouse. The next thing he did was create dummy aircraft batteries that seemed to be firing, and finally he put revolving mirrors on all the searchlights to blind the incoming bomber pilots so they couldn't get a good look at the target. It worked, the bombs were consistently dropped on the dummy Alexandria. I am sure that when the Germans found out about this, they felt like bigger dummies than Alexandria.

The English weren't the only ones to use magicians during the war. The American's employed John Mulholland, who trained American agents in slight of hand, allowing them to pass messages without being noticed.

Some of the things that Maskelyne invented during the war were special boots that had survival gear built in, special crates that could be dropped without parachutes and survive, a flame retardant jell to be used by gunners and an aluminum magnifier for searchlights to blind the enemy.

It is said that he was able to make ships appear using lights, models and mirrors. He was truly a master of illusion.

In 1942 because of his trickery of disguising trucks as tanks and tanks as trucks, Rommel was fooled into thinking a counter attack was about to take place in the opposite direction of where it happened and also thought the British were not yet ready to attack. The Germans suffered horrendous casualties and had to retreat.

Maskelyne died in Kenya at the age of 70 years and ironically was unknown. A movie is supposed to be made of his life but as of this date there is nothing released yet.