NON-FICTION
Churchill's Wizards by Nicholas Rankin
Faber & Faber, £9.99
4/5
IN A NUTSHELL
An accessible and entertaining study of the "the British genius for deception" that helped win two world wars
REVIEW
It was Winston Churchill who said: "In war, resolution; in defeat, defiance; in victory, magnanimity." He could equally have added: "And, at all times, a little trickery."
For Churchill was a most mentally dextrous foe, prepared to consider any means in his quest to preserve Britain and empire.
While he loathed war, there was no doubt that the Boy's Own hero was never more engaged and alive than bringing wit, subterfuge and inventiveness to its execution.
In Nicholas Rankin's fascinating and brilliant book, anecdote, fact and explanation jostle for attention as he lays out the years 1914-1944 as the triumph of the British garden shed amateur with wheezes, bluffs, ruses and deceptions that foxed their opponents.
They were brilliantly outrageous and outrageously brilliant. From camouflage, inflatable tanks and fake airfields, to propaganda and the good old double-cross, this comprehensive work chronicles the unknown warriors who, egged on by Churchill, turned papier mache into a weapon of mass deception.
The book has an air of a military history but it reads like an extended Ealing caper with wags, wizards and, at the heart of it all, the redoubtable Winston.
