Product Description

This is the story of how the British really won two world wars - by conning the Kaiser, hoaxing Hitler and bluffing their way out of trouble. Pretend German radio stations broadcast outrageous British propaganda in German. British geniuses broke German secret codes and eavesdropped on their messages. Every German spy in Britain was captured and many were used to send back false information to their controllers. Forged documents misled their Intelligence. Bogus wireless traffic from entire phantom armies, dummy airfields with model planes, disguised ships and inflatable rubber tanks created a vital illusion of strength. Culminating in the spectacular misdirection that was so essential to the success of D-Day in 1944, "Churchill's Wizards" is a thrilling work of popular military history.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2787 in Books
• Published on: 2009-05-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 672 pages

Review
`Rankin goes poking and probing the lesser-known facts of the two World Wars. What an entertaining journey he provides.' --Len Deighton

`A story clamouring to be told...I could not stop reading this book once I had begun.' --Doris Lessing

Thaddeus Holt, author of The Deceivers: Allied Military Deception in the Second World War
A most enjoyable read.

Review
`A story clamouring to be told...I could not stop reading this book once I had begun.'

Customer Reviews

Comments by Michael Calum Jacques, author of '1st Century Radical'.
Firstly, may I begin on stating that I endorse every statement made by the previous reviewer, Tristan Edwards. His review represents this work accurately and perceptively. This reviewer is surprised that anybody could fail to find that previous review helpful.

This reviewer would like to present some biographical data about the author of 'Wizards'. Nicholas Rankin is a well-known name in broadcasting and, now, in historical literature too,especially since his book Dead Man's Chest (which traced the steps of Robert Louis Stevenson's between Scotland and Samoa)and Telegram from Guernica, an extremely well received treatise on the life of the war-correspondent and propagandist, George Lowther Steer 1909 - 1944). Rankin, then is seasoned in the dual disciplines of communication and of historical research. 'Wizards' combines these disciplines with thoroughness and esprit.

The author sets the historical context very carefully, whilst maintaining the readers concentration and interest (as observed by the previous reviewer) with deft phrases and vivid, sometimes terse, descriptive phraseology and terminology.

By the time the Second World War 'occurred', the British military and secret services had become masters of the art of deception. This book chronicles their achievements, despite the difficulties in obtaining 'the full story' in certain instances; British geniuses cracked what had appeared to be apparently impenetrable German secret codes and were able to glean intelligence from their messages. Apprehended German spies were used to send back false information to officers.

And there is more ... much more; in short, Nicholas Rankin entertainingly presents the reader with well-researched heroic episodes about the hurriedly assembled band of 'creative mavericks' who purloined a victory in what that phrase-smith Churchill referred to as 'the war of the Unknown Warriors'. As alluded to earlier, some of the material was apparently not that easy to obtain; "Official secrecy has weighed heavily on the subject", Rankin says. As well as making the finished project an even greater achievement, that fact renders this work even more commendable to the general reader and valuable to the interested historian.

Michael Calum Jacques (author of 1st Century Radical: the shadowy origins of the man who became known as Jesus Christ)

Wizardry!
I must start by saying that 'Churchill's Wizards' is first and foremost a great read. Nicholas Rankin has managed to turn what at first sight may seem like a forbiddingly esoteric subject into a thoroughly accessible and engaging narrative full of intrigue and incident. This is in no small part down to some very accomplished writing, which throughout the book is always adding splashes of colour to the blacks and whites of historical fact. The rather wonderful picture of Gavrilo Princip at the start of the book, `a tubercular and weedy-looking youth,' consoling himself with a sandwich in Moritz Schiller's cafe after a failed attempt on the life of the Archduke and just before he was to be given a second chance by way of the infamous `wrong turn', is a case in point I think.

`Wizards' story of the secret wars of deception that were fought beneath the surface of the two World Wars is as surprising as it is fascinating. The tales of ingenuity, audacity and at times damn right eccentricity that characterised the British deceptions and ruses are each interesting in their own right and are invariably drawn with much humour and heart. But it is how these portraits fit into the bigger picture that will have the reader gripped; as `Wizards' reworks the annals of war from the perspective of deception. Giving us fresh takes on familiar campaigns and events like `Gallipoli' and `D-day' that have been all but exhausted by books and films.

I have to say that Mr Rankin does this with all the subtlety and skill of one of his 'camofluers': seamlessly integrating vast tracts of unfamiliar territory into the well-trodden historical landscapes of the first and second World Wars. But rather than hollowed-out trees and dummy tanks what one can expect to find when they examine this book is something of real substance. That is, a superbly crafted piece of scholarship that is hugely informative and very, very readable.

A masterpiece of deception
I think that I must have uncovered a new genre of writing - this fits into the same style as 'The Balloon Factory' with little new in the way of information but a lot of irrelevancies introduced presumably in the name of adding some colour! I probably missed the fact that Nicholas Rankin's great-grandmother was a neighbour of someone who knew a servant on the Churchill estate, but that is the sort of irrelevance that gets introduced - particularly by Rankin trying to grab some glory by remote reflection. I was also discomfited by the deceptive title - to me Churchill's wizards were the scientists and engineers who worked productively behind the scenes during WWII, the camoufleurs and propagandists might merit mention as 'Churchill's Magicians or Churchill's Illusionists', but not really as wizards. Biographies of Dudley Clarke and Sefton Delmer might be worthwhile ventures in their own right (particularly the former) but trying to weave the two together and assert, often tenuous, links to Winston Churchill is an opus too far.