Hollywood honours hero magician

by Steve Cunningham< xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

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THE unsung hero who moved Alexandria, hid the Suez Canal and created armies out of thin air will be honoured by Hollywood.

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The amazing story of Jasper Maskelyne is to be told in a film starring Tom Cruise.� Many studios have been considering filming The War Magician, David Fisher's 1983 book about his exploits.

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Maskelyne's ability to 'magic' armies and battleships out of thin air and create diversions with smoke and mirrors saved thousands of lives in the Second World War.

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Maskelyne, grandson of magician and typewriter-inventor John Nevil Maskelyne, amazed music hall audiences with his illusions. When war broke out, he decided to mobilise the world of magic against Hitler.

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Army chief Lord Gort was sceptical, until Maskelyne made a German warship appear in the Thames, using mirrors and a scale model. He was put in charge of the Royal Engineers Camouflage Corps and, with a team of designers, known as the Magic Gang, was sent to Egypt.

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Soon, he was asked for ways of protecting the Suez Canal from German bombs.

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He took his inspiration from the searchlights at anti-aircraft batteries along the 100-mile waterway. If enough searchlights were installed along the canal, Maskelyne thought, a curtain of bright illumination could be created. German airmen trying to see through that intense light would find it impossible to see the canal in their sights.

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Searchlights were in short supply, so Maskelyne and his gang magnified the power of each light by attaching tin reflectors and then - with the aid of the Royal Engineers - altered the lights so that they would spin, creating dazzling cartwheels of light.

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A chain of 21 of these searchlights was put along the length of the canal and despite the Luftwaffe's many missions, the canal remained hidden.

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Maskelyne's finest hour came in 1942, when he was told to convince Field Marshal Erwin Rommel that the Eighth Army was in the south of the Egyptian desert and that an attack would begin there, rather than the north.

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A brass hat hold him: 'You must conceal 150,000 men with 1,000 guns and tanks and the Germans must not know anything about it. You can't do it, of course, but you've bloody well got to.'

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Dummy tanks were made and model men created to depict a huge encampment in the south.

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The Allies also knew Alexandria harbour was a strategic target for the Luftwaffe bombers and wanted Maskelyne to hide it. Instead he built a duplicate harbour three miles away. The Nazis obligingly bombed it.

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Despite his remarkable feats, magic shows went abruptly out of fashion after the war and Maskelyne moved to Kenya to be a farmer. He died there, aged 71.