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THE GREATEST ILLUSIONS IN MAGIC HISTORY Part Six
"Masters of wizardry and illusion, they hid the Suez Canal. They moved Alexandria Harbour." The War Magician , Paperback Edition Cover.
"I think that camouflage men must be among the few otherwise sane beings who yearn to be bombed." Geoffrey Barkas , The Camouflage Story | |||||
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According to Fisher, in June 1941 Barkas had yet another 'mission impossible' for the Magic Gang. The vital Mediterranean port of Alexandria had to be protected from the punishing night-time raids of the Luftwaffe. Could Maskelyne find a way of hiding this target? Could he somehow transfer the principles of stage magic to modern combat? Could he give a new twist to conceptualising war as 'la grande illusion'? The first proposed solution was to cover the ships and port facilities under huge canvas sheets, but this would be an enormous undertaking. This method might be feasible for disguising small coves, such as those around Tobruk, but Alexandria Harbour was far too large. The second idea was to construct a massive optical illusion based on gigantic mirrors, but this was rejected as impractical. Even if such an illusion were feasible, stray bombs would shatter the glass contraption. Fisher attributes the following words to Maskelyne: “We can't cover it up. We can't disguise it. And we can't hide it. There's only one solution left to us, isn't there? ...We've got to move it." Consequently, Maskelyne and his crew began creating a replica seaport located at ‘Maryut Bay’, a similar shaped shoreline further along the Mediterranean coast. Their aim was to mimic the way the real Alexandria might appear in the dark from the air. Fisher's description continues: "Using night reconnaissance photographs as their blueprint, the Engineers replicated the ground-light pattern of Alexandria harbour by staking hundreds of electric lanterns into the sand and mud, then wiring them as if solving an elaborate connect-the-dots puzzle." Because enemy bombers would expect some reaction from genuine ground targets, real anti-aircraft guns were supplied and made operational. Remote control explosives were installed in several of the fake wooden structures. An elevated on-off light was constructed to mimic the Pharos lighthouse. To save time and material, this fake Alexandria was built on a shrunken proportional scale. This would make no visible difference to enemy observers at night time. Meanwhile, the real port of Alexandria was subject to a complete black-out. Maskelyne arranged for soldiers to create fake bomb damage and to plant painted craters in and around the real city to fool enemy reconnaissance planes. At ‘Maryut Bay’, others were instructed to make necessary repairs to the replica port which during the day would be hidden by camouflage netting. According to Fisher's account, on the first night “hundreds of bombs peppered Maskelyne’s sandy ‘stage’.” Eight days in succession German bombers came at night and bombed the wrong harbour. Then all was quiet. The Luftwaffe had been ordered to concentrate on Operation Barbarossa, the secret invasion of Russia. The ‘Maryut Bay’ deception thus proved to be a useful test case for the development of later decoy sites. Or was it? How effective was this stratagem? Where indeed was the decoy site located? How long was it maintained? Why does no-one else mention it? Why are there no surviving photos or blueprints? Did it even take place? Certain critical points need to be raised: Firstly, Michael Haag, an expert on Alexandria, tipped me off that ‘Maryut Bay,’ as such, does not exist. ‘Magic: Top-Secret’ states that “a mile along the coast is Mariut Bay” and Fisher repeated this claim : “about a mile down the coast is Maryut Bay”. But Maryut is an inland salt-water lake not a bay or a shoreline. This is an important observation, overlooked by all previous writers. Secondly, Fisher claimed that “nothing of the magnitude proposed by Maskelyne had ever been considered." This assertion is wrong. Fisher fails to mention that special night-time decoys, known as Starfish sites, were being developed around important British industrial centres in late 1940 and early 1941. (The codename Starfish is derived from the letters SF which originally referred to Special Fires.) As in Maryut Lake, rigged explosives were designed to simulate 'hits' from enemy raiders. The details of these pyrotechnic wonders can be found in Dr. Colin Dobinson’s Fields of Deception: Britain’s Bombing decoys of World War 11 (2000): “By the end of December(1940) eighteen Starfish were operational. From December 1940 new Starfish continued to open at a rate averaging almost one site daily until June(1941) , when the end of the Blitz brought a hiatus in construction.” Dobinson documents how starfish installations thwarted German raids against Bristol in March 1941 and Portsmouth in April 1941. These decoy sites clearly predate Maskelyne's Maryut Lake deception. It is quite possible that as starfish sites blossomed in the United Kingdom, someone in authority considered transferring these ideas to vulnerable overseas locations. Interestingly, there is no evidence that the Farnham camouflage training course in late 1940 had incorporated such up-to-date ideas. According to an independent anecdote from Julian Trevelyan, Maskelyne’s achievements on that course were competent but not outstanding. I find it surprising that Jasper Maskelyne could suddenly excel at starfish design when months earlier in Farnham he had problems designing basic camouflaged pill-boxes. Thirdly, Magic Top-Secret claims the fake Alexandria was subjected to a bombardment of only three days not eight days. This is a significant discrepancy. Fisher, in general, has a tendency to embellish material that may well be semi-fictional in the first place. Suppose the decoy harbour had never been constructed. Would those eight days (or only three days) of bombardment by the Luftwaffe have made any significant difference to the long-term survival of Alexandria? This is doubtful. At worst , there would have been delays to supplies and equipment, but the situation faced by the British Army in terms of logistics was less critical than that faced by the Afrika Korps. In fact, I would argue that the decoy site described by Maskelyne, Stuart and Fisher would have been dangerously counterproductive. Butt’s confidential survey of Allied air missions in 1941 revealed that bombing techniques were shockingly inaccurate. At this stage of the war, precision bombing by either side did not exist. Lake Maryut is immediately south-west of the main harbour. In the dark, with Alexandria blacked out, an illuminated decoy site could plausibly be mistaken for the main harbour and would attract enemy bombers. However, if the decoy site were a mere mile away, it would by default draw bombs onto the real harbour. It would make more sense to place the decoy at least five miles away from the real harbour. (A few UK starfish sites were placed two or three miles from a city’s outskirts, but most were placed further away. There is no known example of a UK starfish site built within a mile of its parent.) And why would the Maryut decoy be closed down after eight (or three) days? Starfish sites were long-term projects and would be maintained and updated as long as they were deemed useful. A successful decoy site near Alexandria would surely have been kept running for two years or more. (Haag has come up with an interesting speculation: perhaps Maskelyne built his decoy site further to the west and made use of the ancient Ptolemaic tower at Burg el Arab ? This tower is a one-third the size replica of the ancient Pharos Lighthouse and is about thirty miles west of Alexandria on the north side of Maryut Lake. Unfortunately, a distance of thirty miles would probably be too far away to be effective. Most starfish sites were built within ten miles of the genuine target. ) My other concern with the Alexandria episode is that all previous writers on Maskelyne have conveniently overlooked the skills of German photographic interpreters. German aerial reconnaissance was quite advanced, even at the start of the war. Colonel Rowehl pioneered this type of intelligence from 1934 onwards. His team of élite pilots were able to take numerous secret photos over enemy territory both before and during the war. Presumably, throughout 1941 and 1942, detailed photos were taken by the Germans of critical Allied installations in North Africa. It would be useful to examine any surviving files and find out how far their reconnaissance experts were able to distinguish between the legitimate sites and the decoy sites in the desert war. The secret work of the equivalent Allied organisation , the RAF Medmenham unit, has been well documented. These recollections provide valuable insight into the embryonic techniques of photographic intelligence. As a counterbalance, the German accomplishments in this field also need to be properly analysed. At the end of the war ,the Americans and British secretly acquired Nazi Germany’s vast photo-reconnaissance archive detailing key industrial and military sites in the Soviet Union.This captured material, codenamed GX, remained classified throughout the Cold War. Keele University are planning to place The Aerial Reconnaissance Archives (TARA) on-line which will include the GX photos. I also hope the captured German reconnaissance photos for the Mediterranean area will be eventually placed on the Net. This could really add to our understanding of the effectiveness of the British camouflage and decoy operations in Egypt. In R. Stanley's “To Fool A Glass Eye (Camouflage vs Photoreconnaissance)”, I found an aerial photograph of Alexandria taken on 24 April 1941 by a German spy plane. The specific photograph proves the Germans were aware of | |||||
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GERMAN SPY PHOTO OF CAMOUFLAGED PORT FACILITIES, ALEXANDRIA, APRIL 24TH , 1941 camouflaged dock facilities that preceded Maskelyne’s alleged work. It also suggests that they had already carefully mapped out the town and harbour from on high. German reconnaissance experts were not stupid. In regard to Maskelyne's camouflage tricks, they would have easily spotted the difference between fake bomb craters painted on canvas and real craters blasted into the surrounding earth and concrete. Not only do the patterns look different, but the genuine craters cast real shadows that correspond with the angle and direction of shadows made by surrounding objects. Maskelyne's decoy harbour may have been an interesting idea borrowed from the homeland sites, but there is no evidence that it played a critical role in keeping Alexandria Harbour safe . Indeed, there is no hard evidence in the archives that the site ever existed. There is no information about the date, the duration, the extent and the exact position of the alleged decoy site. Without this information, it is impossible to estimate the number of bombs that may have been diverted by it . Despite the paucity of the evidence, Channel 5 (U.K) in 2003 claimed that Maskelyne’s work at Alexandria was one of the greatest illusions in magic history. There were other more important reasons why the Luftwaffe failed to shut down the key port of Alexandria , which had nothing to do with Maskelyne. These alternative explanations will surface when we examine why the Germans were also unable to close down the Suez Canal during the same period.
VANISHING THE SUEZ CANAL?
Britain's most bizarre secret weapon of WW II - he made the Suez Canal 'disappear'! Front cover of the paperback edition of "The War Magician"
According to Fisher's account, after the success of the Alexandrian experiment, Major Barkas had further important work for the Magic Gang. He asked if Maskelyne could camouflage the Suez Canal, a vital supply line. The answer, of course, was yes. But how could this impossible challenge be met? The Canal was 107 miles long. Undaunted, the Magic Gang, according to Fisher, sat down and brainstormed possible solutions to this immense task. As with the Alexandrian challenge, they began by considering the more obvious solutions. To begin with, why not cover the whole canal with canvas? This would be impractical, expensive,and time consuming. Then, why not construct mirrors to create an immense visual illusion, deflecting the position of the real canal? This seemed at first like a promising approach but was rejected when Maskelyne realised that it would require too many mirrors. Instead, Maskelyne came up with the unorthodox idea of constructing 21 'dazzle lights' along the length of the Canal. These powerful searchlights , containing 24 different spinning beams, projected a swirling, cartwheeling confusion of light up to nine miles into the sky. A barrage of light to confuse and blind the enemy bombers, which Maskelyne dubbed Whirling Spray. Fisher claims that this radical defensive shield of light was highly effective and was a major reason why the Suez Canal remained open for the duration of the war. According to Fisher, Maskelyne's dazzle lights were later employed successfully in England:“Maskelyne’s magic mirrors eventually became an important weapon in Britain’s air raid defence system... the Spray received credit for assisting in numerous Heinkel and Messerschmitt kills as well as preventing countless others from reaching their target.” If only these extraordinary and outlandish claims were true... The description of Maskelyne’s near fatal test flight above the deathly dazzle light reads like B-movie melodrama. Fisher obviously based his account on the dubious incident written up in Magic:Top-Secret , which has all the hallmarks of the invisible ghostwriter. Let us extract ourselves from the world of make-believe and consider the evidence more seriously. When I first read "The War Magician", I wondered how effective the dazzle lights really were. Several questions came to mind. Why did the Germans fail to close down the Suez Canal in 1941? Was it solely because of Maskelyne's ingenious dazzle lights? Or were there other reasons ? Was the Suez Canal a feasible target ? Were there severe limitations on flying time for German bombers? Was aerial bombardment too crude and inaccurate, even with clear targets? By mid-1941, were the German commanders more interested in preparing for Barbarossa, the surprise onslaught against the Soviet Union ? Further research was needed, but useful material was hard to find. This whole topic has been curiously neglected by historians. Even books specialising in the Mediterranean war gave only brief coverage to the Suez Canal zone. Of course, its strategic importance was frequently mentioned, but there was scant information on how the Canal was actually defended and why the German efforts fell short. Fortunately, I came across an excellent article, "Protecting the Jugular Vein of Empire: The Suez Canal in British Defence Strategy 1919-1941" by historian Steven Morewood which gave answers to my questions. The following information is based on his valuable research: Raids by Italian bombers in the latter half of 1940 were sporadic, ineffective and inaccurate. The Luftwaffe made its first bombing attack on January 19th 1941, though with little effect. Later that month, magnetic mines were introduced, closing the Canal for the early part of February. And in March 1941 the Germans succeeded in sinking minesweepers. Churchill warned his generals that the Suez Canal must be kept open. Middle East commander Cunningham advocated"carpeting the canal with large-meshed fishing nets". This was too ambitious a scheme for the whole length of the Canal, but was eventually carried out in the more vulnerable areas. In addition ,200 observation posts were set up along the Canal. The Germans were to employ three types of mines : "acoustic, magnetic, delayed action". As the raids became more threatening, greater efforts were made by the British to improve the defences. According to Morewood, "The mine sweeping organisation was improved, further AA guns installed, a gun zone established between Port Said and Kantara and air fighter zones between the latter and Ismailia. Formidable barrages from heavy and light guns became available at the terminal ports. In the crucial rocky section between Ismailia and Deversoir barrage balloons and AA guns were concentrated in an effort to keep attacking aircraft at a high altitude. Ultimately , this sector was to be covered at night by a huge net, penetration of which allowed the positions of mines dropped during darkness to be pinpointed. Divers then went down to deal with the mines. The canal was regularly walked along its bottom by six navy divers, three from each end, after which ships were allowed to proceed. On 15 May ,Cunningham was delighted to report that Suez's defences had claimed an enemy aircraft for the first time and probably two more. Two days later half the raiders were brought down." The important thing to note is that the British were constantly taking effective defensive measures in reaction to the German threat. Each time the Luftwaffe changed tactics, the Canal defences were altered and tightened. For example, in May 1941 : "Compelled by barrage balloons and more intense AA fire to abandon low level sorties, its (the Luftwaffe's) attacks were dispersed over a wider area than hitherto and mine laying was accompanied by the bombing and machine gunning of defence positions..." In July 1941 : "...the Germans tried yet another tactic, making concentrated attacks with more aircraft upon the canal's harbour installations and ships at anchor." Meantime, the British , far from being passive, had installed more sophisticated warning radar. In addition, German radio messages were being successfully decoded which revealed the strategic deployment of enemy aircraft in the Mediterranean and also provided advance warning of specific raids. In August and September 1941, German raids continued, but the British responded by bringing in an anti-aircraft cruiser and more fighter aircraft. In October 1941, a tanker was "sunk by a mine believed to have been laid as far back as 12 July." As a consequence, the British introduced "more intensive mine sweeping from early November." There were four failed enemy air raids in the first ten days of November. "Thereafter, there were no further serious incidents." "By 1942 Suez's defences were such that the Luftwaffe preferred to send reconnaissance aircraft rather than raiders over Suez." "The War Magican" gives late September 1941 as the introduction of Maskelyne's experimental 'whirling spray' dazzle lights. But the battle to protect the Suez Canal had already been underway for eight months. Maskelyne's outfit would have begun its work at the very end of the campaign. | |||||
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The astonishing claim that Maskelyne made the Suez Canal 'vanish' by employing a miracle searchlight weapon can no longer be accepted. The evidence indicates that the successful protection of the Canal from enemy air attack was due to a concerted team effort over several months that drew upon all available means of defence.
'Whirling sprays' did not make any difference to the defence of the Suez Canal. There is no evidence that they were ever used against enemy bombers. Interestingly, Alistair Maskelyne suspects that Jasper's dazzle lights were never fully implemented. In his first letter, he wrote:"The 'Dazzle Lights' were an idea which was, I believe, constructed only in one prototype and tested on one occasion. My father's account as I remember it is all I have on this."
Furthermore, the real reasons preventing Alexandria Harbour from being bombed into oblivion and preventing the Suez Canal from being turned into a naval graveyard had nothing to do with conjuring tricks or miracle defence weapons. Strategic imperatives hampered effective operations by the Luftwaffe. Firstly, its pilots were faced with too many competing tasks. Attacking the vital harbours and airfields of Malta and eradicating the irritating British enclaves at Benghazi and Tobruk were given higher priority. The Luftwaffe diverted its resources into these more immediate areas because the targets were smaller, closer and seemed within their grasp. In contrast, vital targets like Alexandria, Port Said and the Suez Canal did not receive the same relentless, continuous bombardment. Ironically, the Luftwaffe failed to shut down even the easier targets. During the aerial assault and land siege on Tobruk, the port was kept open, supplied and even reinforced from the sea. Secondly, by June 1941, at a time when the German air offensive against the Eighth Army needed an urgent boost, Hitler was actually withdrawing vital aircraft from the Mediterranean in preparation for the invasion of Russia. In September 1941, ocean liners crammed with British troop reinforcements approached Suez. These vulnerable ships,which had taken the Cape route, arrived at the southern entrance of Suez unharmed. The German air effort by this stage seemed ludicrously inadequate. Thirdly, the British codebreakers began to have astonishing success in cracking the enemy codes and were secretly providing useful information on the supply movements of enemy vessels. By the end of September 1941, Hitler had ordered his remaining aircraft in the Mediterranean to concentrate on defending Axis convoys which were sustaining heavy losses.
The two alleged accomplishments of Jasper Maskelyne, namely the protection of Alexandria and the camouflaging of the Suez Canal, are at the core of the tale of "The War Magician". Curiously, Barkas himself in his own memoirs makes no mention of such specific accomplishments when he discusses the camouflage work performed in the North African campaign. Steven Sykes, who set up phoney port installations near Cyrenaica in January 1942, does not refer to Maskelyne’s pioneering work. The secret records released thirty years afterwards do not specifically cite Maskelyne’s ambitious camouflage schemes. For example, the detailed reviews of camouflage achievements in the Middle East for 1941 and 1942 include several camouflage operations but make no reference to any notable work at Alexandria or the Canal. Steven Morewood recently informed me that Jasper Maskelyne’s name was not mentioned in any of the British government documents that he examined in preparation for his article on the defence of the Suez Canal. Maskelyne may well have been involved in genuine camouflage work in the vicinity of Alexandria and the Suez Canal. But Barkas' and Sykes’ silence and the lack of evidence in the declassified archives suggest to me that the results of these schemes were not particularly impressive or memorable. John Booth in his enthusiastic review of "The War Magician" seemed convinced that these accomplishments in wartime camouflage deserved to be called "the greatest illusions in human history." The survival of Alexandria and the successful protection of the Suez Canal were due to other factors that have been either neglected or downplayed in Fisher's account. On the available evidence, there are powerful reasons to conclude that these so-called achievements of Maskelyne were mythical.
________________________________________________________________________________________________ BLINDED BY THE LIGHT
I have recently tried to unravel the real story behind the dazzle lights. In 1917, to break the deadlock of trench warfare, British generals considered using powerful night-time dazzle lights attached to moving vehicles. They hoped that these horizontal beams would not only confuse and blind the enemy but allow their own troops to move forward unseen. This radical proposal was never implemented. A private consortium persevered with the idea and in the 1920’s and 1930’s tried but failed to interest the French Army. As war threatened , the British Army reactivated its interest. In 1937, the dazzle light was tested on Salisbury Plain. Further trials took place in June 1940 at Lulworth, Dorset. Consequently, the Army began building specially modified tank turrets with shuttered projectors. A useful article by David Fletcher on the ‘Canal Defence Light’ mystery can be found in the May 2004 copy of Classic Military Vehicle: “The theory was that this shutter would open and shut rapidly , causing the light to flicker and dazzle anyone it was shining on. This flickering had the effect of first contracting and then expanding the pupil’s of an onlooker’s eyes until he became effectively, if temporarily , blinded and totally disorientated.” Why were they code-named Canal Defence Lights (CDLs)? This appears to be a reference to the Suez Canal. Ideally, we need to find out when this term was introduced and what it actually referred to. Fletcher thinks it may be linked to plans to protect the Canal as far back as the First World War. Fletcher writes : “the British Official Histories (of WW1) are silent on the matter. The closest they come are rumours of an armoured train, fitted with searchlights, and a gun barge, similarly equipped, with the searchlights on raised platforms to shine over the high banks of the canal.” However, I would guess that the codename is of later origin and may well signify that dazzle lights were considered as a means of defending the Suez Canal in the Second World War. My theory is that Maskelyne based his magic dazzle light on this prototype and added his spinning set of mirrors. Photographs of Maskelyne’s searchlight appear in Magic: Top-Secret. There is no evidence that a full set (21) of whirling spray searchlights were ever positioned along the Canal. As the war progressed, the British and Americans developed the original dazzle lights , but hardly ever used them in combat. Time, money, equipment and tank personnel were ultimately squandered on a controversial project. The tank-based weapons were not used either in the North African campaign or in the Normandy invasions of 1944. CDL’s were briefly used on the Rhine crossings in 1944. Correspondence and information on CDL’s can be found in London at the Liddell Hart Centre and the National Archives.
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