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.
Early life
Maskelyne was born in Wandsworth, London, England in 1902, to magician Nevil Maskelyne and his wife Ada Mary Ardley.
Career
Stage magician
thumb|Maskelyne in formal evening wear, typical of his pre-war stage performances
Maskelyne was a successful stage magician. His 1936 Maskelyne's Book of Magic describes a range of stage tricks, including sleight of hand, card and rope tricks, and illusions of "mind-reading".
In 1937, Maskelyne appeared in a Pathé film, The Famous Illusionist, in which he performed his well-known trick of appearing to swallow razor blades.
Wartime service
thumb|Maskelyne during his Army service
thumb|An inflatable dummy [[M4 Sherman|Sherman tank, one of many deceptions that Maskelyne claimed to have created]]
thumb|Maskelyne entertains Indian Army officers and civilian VIP's being at Mena House in [[Cairo, 19 April 1942.]]
When the Second World War broke out, Maskelyne, believing his skills could be used for camouflage, joined the Royal Engineers. According to one account, he convinced skeptical officers, including inspector of training Viscount Gort, of his bona fides by camouflaging a machine gun position in plain sight and creating the illusion of the German warship Graf Spee on the Thames using mirrors and a model.
In 1940, Maskelyne was trained at the Camouflage Development and Training Centre at Farnham Castle. 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". 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".
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. These included tools hidden in cricket bats, saw blades inside combs, and small maps on objects such as playing cards.