The Illusionist: Dudley Clarke - The True Story of the Man Who Fooled Hitler (SAS Rogue Heroes)
With Robert Hutton
Part of our Special Air Service (SAS) in WWII - Rogue Heroes series
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If you’ve heard of Dudley Clarke, it’s probably from Dominic West’s highly enjoyable portrayal of him in the BBC’s drama series SAS: Rogue Heroes. Clarke was friends with David Stirling, and helped him set up the SAS, giving it the name of a fake unit he’d already invented. The TV version of Clarke was great fun, but the real story is even more extraordinary. The other reason you might have heard of Clarke is his arrest in Madrid in 1941. He was at the time “dressed, down to a brassiere, as a woman”. This was a huge intelligence scandal: Clarke’s head was full of British secrets, and he was being held in a Spanish prison, in circumstances that were, by the standards of the day, unusual. Churchill was consulted. Clarke’s career would only be saved by, of all people, the German navy.
Mysterious, humorous, imaginative, unflappable: Dudley Clarke was a great British eccentric. The Illusionist tells the story of how he found his calling in the midst of the battlefields of the Middle East.
Robert Hutton https://roberthutton.co.uk/ started as a computer scientist but moved into journalism. His latest book, The Illusionist, is about Dudley Clarke, the eccentric genius who realised how the Allies could use stage magic to deceive the Nazis. Robert also works as a political satirist for The Critic magazine, and he hosts the podcast War Movie Theatre
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/war-movie-theatre/id1658615966
Buy the book
USA https://bookshop.org/a/21029/9781639367160
UK https://uk.bookshop.org/a/5843/9781474626026
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