The Illusionist: The True Story of the Man Who Fooled Hitler [Hardcover]

The astonishing story of how in 1942, in Egypt, Colonel Dudley Clarke's ingenious A Force thwarted the Nazis while inventing a whole new playbook of military deception.

Cairo, 1942: If you had asked a British officer who Colonel Clarke was, they would have been able to point him out. Always ready with a drink and a story, Clarke was a well-known figure in Cairo social circles and nightlife. If you then asked what he did, you would have less success. Those who knew didn't tell—and almost no one really knew at all.

Clarke thought of himself as developing a new kind of weapon. Its components? Rumor, stagecraft, a sense of fun. Its target? The mind of Erwin Rommel, Hitler's greatest general. Throughout history, military commanders have sought to mislead their opponents. Dudley Clarke set out to do it on a scale no one had imagined before. Even afterwards, almost no one understood the magnitude of his achievement.

Drawing on recently released documents and hugely expanding on the louche portrait of Clarke as seen inSAS: Rogue Warriors, journalist and historian Robert Hutton reveals the amazing story of Clarke's A Force,” the invention of the SAS and the Commandos, and the masterful hoodwinking of the Desert Fox at the battle of El Alamein.

The Illusionisttells for the first time the dazzling tale of how, at a pivotal moment in the war, British eccentricity and imagination combined to thwart the Nazis and save innumerable lives—on both sides.Robert Huttonis the author of Agent Jack: The True Story of MI5’s Secret Nazi Hunter. For sixteen years he was Bloomberg’s UK Political Correspondent. Robert lives in London."A full and satisfying biography of a man who exemplified irregular warfare, British style. Thanks to his extensive research and skill as a writer, Mr. Hutton tells Clarke’s story in detail without losing the reader’s attention. We now knlã#