(#8) When The White Lily Of Stalingrad, A 20-Year-Old Jewish Girl, Started Blowing Nazis Out Of The Sky
The 588th night bomber regiment were not the only sky witches who ran amok in Nazi airspace. The 586th all-female regiment boasted the presence of Lydia Litvyak, the White Lily of Stalingrad. Lydia began flying when she was 14, and trained many of the Night Witches. In 1942, on her third mission, she became the first woman in Soviet history to shoot down an enemy aircraft. A few minutes later, she did it again.
One of the first planes Litvyak shot down belonged to German Staff Sergeant Erwin Maier, an 11-kill recipient of the Iron Cross. The Russians captured Maier, and he demanded to meet the man who shot him down (more upset by the blow to his ego than his capture). When 20-year-old Litvyak revealed herself, he was in disbelief (some extra salt in the wound: she was Jewish). She recounted their air battle blow-by-blow.
Litvyak was a larger-than-life legend, racking up 14 kills and inspiring fear in Nazi fighter pilots who believed her to be more than human, much like her fellow witches in the 588th. However, her career only lasted a year; she disappeared in August 1943. Her remains, found in 1979, revealed she was shot down.
(#10) That Time Maskelyne Claims To Have Hidden The Suez Canal With A Laser Light Show
The most contested piece of magical technology in WWII is Jasper Maskelyne’s rotating Dazzle Lights, which supposedly saved the Suez Canal. There are photos of the device being assembled (such as the one above), but no official documents affirming the plan was carried out in the way Maskelyne claimed in his book.
According to Maskelyne, he and his Magic Gang designed and constructed a rotating structure made of coned mirrors that spun and reflected powerful searchlights. When the device was set in motion, it created dazzling beams nine miles high that made it impossible for Nazi bombers to get anywhere near the Suez Canal. Some of his work has been recreated by modern magicians, but the world will have to wait until 2046 to find out what really went down those years in Egypt.
(#5) When The Night Witches Flew Planes Like Broomsticks
The “whooshing” sound of the Night Witches Po-2 planes was an accident, but the unit's emulation of broomsticks didn’t end there. Because their planes were small and light, the Night Witches had unprecedented maneuverability. They flew lower to the ground than Nazi bombers, which allowed them tremendous accuracy when it came to annihilating German necessities like supply depots and encampments, and they zipped around in ways no heavy German plane could mimic.
On top of this, the Po-2's maximum speed was slower than Nazi bombers stall speed (the speed at which a plane is too slow to support itself in the sky), which made it extremely difficult for Nazi planes to pursue them. Night Witches flew in formations of three, two of which were decoys. The decoys flew straight over Nazi camps with their engines on before splitting off into opposite directions. The third would then glide in under the cover of night, engine off. This formation continue until each plane had dropped its bombs.
The greatest danger faced by Night Witches was the flammable organic material of which their planes were made. Enemy fire could light up the bombers like broomsticks made of dry hay, but the maneuverability of the planes made them hard to hit. And these same dangerous organic materials helped when it came to camouflage. The lack of shiny metal made the planes hard to spot in the sky, and their tiny engines couldn’t be picked up on the radar or infrared scanners.
To German soldiers, the zippy wooden planes really did seem like the flying broomsticks of fairy tales, as did the Night Witches habit of disappearing into the night after a violent, surprise raid.
(#1) That Time Jasper Maskelyne And His Magic Gang Made A Decoy Harbor
Full disclosure before you read any more about Maskelyne: most of the stories about his involvement in World War 2 come from him and a book written on him without much corroboration. Though he was most definitely in the war, and contributed illusions to the Allied cause, there's a lot of controversy about what he actually did. Some doubt The Magic Gang even existed.
With that out of the way...
Stage magician Jasper Maskelyne was displeased World War Two had taken his London public away from him. Without an audience for his magic, he had only himself to fool, and he promptly fooled himself into believing he was absolutely indispensable to the British Army. Desperate times called for desperate war magicians, and after several rejections (more times than he admits in his autobiography, Magic Top Secret) Maskelyne was deployed to the Cairo camouflage division in November 1941.
In Cairo, Maskelyne was allowed to assemble a renegade special forces unit to train in the magical arts. The group included a cartoonist, a potter, an analytical chemist, a stained glass expert, and a theatrical set designer. They were considered quite the joke, and nicknamed The Magic Gang.
The Magic Gang proved its worth when the German bombers set sights on Egypt’s Alexandria Harbor in June 1941. Alexandria was the predominant Allied naval base in North Africa, and its most critical supply point. The Magic Gang was conscripted for some classic misdirection. A decoy harbor with a similar aerial profile but smaller in size was constructed in the nearby Maryut Bay.
Relying on the cloak of darkness, the Magic Gang built dummy warships and buildings from mud and cardboard. Remote-controlled explosives were set to mimic bomb detonations, so when Germans flew overhead, they saw explosions and believed their flight commander had begun the air raid. They followed suit and unknowingly bombed a decoy harbor, whilst the real one was hidden safely nearby in blackout mode.
(#6) That Time The "War Magician” MacGyvered Clues And Weapons To POWs
Before heading to Cairo, Jasper Maskelyne convinced the Allies he was more than a party clown by devising essential small-scale magic technology. The Royal Engineers needed ways to send auxiliary devices to Allied prisoners of war. In a surprising twist of empathy, the Nazis allowed POWs to receive care packages, but you couldn't just send maps and compasses through Nazi post and expect them to reach their destination.
Enter Maskelyne, who found disguising tools of escape in ordinary objects just as thrilling as eating razor blades on stage, as he did every night in London for years. In some packages, he crafted miniature compasses set in coat buttons; in others, he painted intricate maps onto decks of cards. He even assembled switchblade hair combs.
These tricks of practical magic helped numerous prisoners escape, and convinced the Allies that perhaps magic could be used in World War II.
(#7) That Time The Magic Gang Created A Fleet Of Decoy Tanks And Hid Real Tanks In Truck Shells
In October 1942, the Allies gained the upper hand on the African Front, and plotted a decisive victory to prevent the power balance from tilting back to the Nazis. In order to plan and carry out such an attack, the Allies needed a major distraction. Thus, Operation Bertram, which involved tricking the German Afrika Korps into believing an invasion was coming from the south of Egypt, when it was coming from the north.
The red herring invasion was composed of countless dummy tanks and tanks disguised as trucks with decoy shells. South of the Nazi power base, the Allies set out decoy tanks and created the illusion of a major construction project, complete with supply dumps, radio chatter, piles of ammunition, railway lines, storage buildings, and a water pipeline.
Meanwhile, real tanks were moving in from the north disguised as unarmed trucks. On October 23, 1942, the attack from the north came as a complete surprise to the Germans. The mission succeeded in all its goals and resulted in the capture of a Nazi general.
Although Maskelyne claimed credit for Operation Bertram, some believe another camouflage expert masterminded the operation. Allegedly, the real brains behind Bertram died before the war ended, and didn’t get to write a tell-all memoir like Maskelyne (another reason to set an alarm for those 2046 document releases).
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About This Tool
Magicians use props or techniques or psychology to make the impossible possible. Magic as a performance art has a long history, as early as the Neolithic period. In modern history, magic has also been used in wars. The legendary magician in World War II was named Jasper Maschinen. With family influence, Jasper became a popular magician in London at a young age. But Jasper has greater desires and fantasies, and he wants to use his magic skills to create a greater impact.
During World War II, Jasper Maschinen served for the British Army, he used magic to "remove" Alexandria and "hide" the Suez Canal. There were also other great con men and magician has repeatedly used magic and tricks to withstand Nazis attacks and saved the lives of tens of thousands of soldiers. The random tool shares 10 historical stories about these heroes.
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