The Illusionist: The True Story of the Man Who Fooled Hitler

“Hutton lets Clarke be the magician of World War II, which keeps the story entertaining, engaging, and exciting.”

The “glory” days of the adventure of war are not going out “without a fight,” as shown by several books in the last few years, sometimes entire publishers, including Robert Hutton's The Illusionist: The True Story of the Man Who Fooled Hitler. The hero is Colonel Dudley Clarke, “a sort of respectable scoundrel” in World War II who pioneered modern deception and guerilla warfare. His background was having a favorite bachelor uncle who performed magic tricks!

Clarke’s work was so secret that much of it only became declassified long after the war. When other British officers were prepared to flee Egypt in panic, Clarke was “having the time of his life,” planning all the things he was going to do in Alexandria to make the Germans’ lives “hell.”

This South African was the son of an English adventurer doting father, who brought his family to Britain, where Clarke was raised. He was one of the few of his generation to try to join the fighting in World War I and, despite numerous adventures, failed.

After the war, Clarke served as an officer and sometimes correspondent in India, Mesopotamia, Palestine, Aden, Morrocco, and Germany. He enjoyed adventures, jokes, “play acting, and dressing up,” and good stories, especially if they involved him.

The narrative of The Illusionist is lively and straightforward, befitting the subject while trying to separate the incredible from the likely fictional. Hutton lets Clarke be the magician of World War II, which keeps the story entertaining, engaging, and exciting. At times, Hutton’s careful craftsmanship in writing disappears within the story.

The author praises Clarke as “a trusted man with a rebellious streak, a team player who could work on his own, a joker who noted everything and could keep a secret, a career soldier with a creative vision.” Hutton, understandably, often fails to find the real man, “someone who could be alone in a crowd.”

Clark's career is a mini-history of Britain and the war in the West. He began World War II as a critical go-between with the military planners in London, to Norway and France as those nations failed, and to Ireland as it prepared for possible invasion. The author then gives historical examples of success in military deception before going on to Clarke’s many other achievements.

Influential figures such as General Harold Alexander and President Franklin Roosevelt would note Clarke’s accomplishments. Hutton notes many other British successes at deception, but almost all go back to Clarke and his Force A, an army of lies and liars.

Clarke was appointed military assistant to the Chief of the Imperial General Staff in 1940. He set about organizing raids by small groups he named “commandos” against the Germans occupying France, but in Britain, in the worst-case situation.

General Archibald Wavell specifically requested and received Clarke for service in Egypt. He wanted an independent thinker who could undo the Italian advantages in sheer numbers. Clarke would well serve the British and American war effort in Europe to the end of the war.

Clarke contributed to Britain’s subsequent victory by persuading the enemy to defend the wrong places for the wrong reasons and at the wrong time. His efforts against German legend Erwin Rommel often “were a failure at every level.” (Ironically, Rommell ultimately failed, time and again, from his intelligence failures.) Clarke could also do nothing about Winston Churchill's bad decisions.

Identifying and turning German intelligence agents “proved less of a struggle than it should have been.”  They “were often sent out poorly equipped and with little training.” Clarke sometimes had to help build enemy intelligence networks to send them believable lies. Sometimes, the enemy was fooled but had “gone and done the wrong thing.”

Despite his singular importance, Clarke was constantly “scouting enemy defenses dressed as a civilian.” “He was having fun” as the perfect showman. Once, he was arrested in Spain while dressed in women’s clothing but was saved by a German agent who thought he worked for Germany. He escaped from a ship that was torpedoed.

Hutton tells the basics of how Clarke’s network succeeded, with even the details crafted to be entertaining. The colonel might spread falsehoods, sometimes using commandos, dummy vehicles, facts, newspapers, nonexistent units, phony convoys, plane sitings, supply buildups, and troop movements in Africa and Turkey to reach Japan, then repeating the process to Italy for the final arrival in Germany.

“The best way to smuggle a lie was hidden among a bundle of truth.” More than “simply to persuade the enemy to accept a series of false facts” but to “assemble the facts into a false story.” “The contradictory false news drowned out the more accurate.” Problems came from working with liars; even Clarke did not know their real identities.

The Illusionist is essentially a biography of Dudley Clarke’s career, not of the man. Even at that, this entertaining, fast read of 384 pages is often a well-written outline. There is more for the interested reader, including Clarke’s books and movie portrayals. This work includes annotation, a bibliography, and illustrations.