Magic at War

Continuing a short series of blogs about magicians who were prisoners-of-war in the Far East during World War Two, this blog looks at Anton Trouvat. A Dutch semi-professional magician, he got caught up in the war when Imperial Japan invaded the Dutch East Indies. A promisin g young magician Anton Hugo Trouvat was born in November 1913, a year before the end of World War One. He was born to Dutch parents in Padang, a city in western Sumatra in the Dutch East Indies  (an area now known as Indonesia). In the late 1930s, Trouvat worked  for Lindeteves-Stokvis, a large Dutch trading company.  Part-time, Trouvat was a magician. A member of the Society of Indonesian Magicians, he was regarded by his peers as a promising performer and a leading light in a new younger generation of magicians. When war broke out in Europe, The Netherlands’ government bolstered the defence of the Dutch East Indies colony. It was concerned about Japanese interest in the colony's rich natural resource...

In wartime Britain, radio was the chief form of news and entertainment. The B.B.C. had launched a television service in 1936, but t ransmissions were halted throughout the war. Returning home after a hard day’s work, exhausted and often depressed about wartime events, the British population would turn to the radio for light relief and a sense of normality.  The wireless brought the news vividly to life for people far from the action, but it was also a source of comfort too. In their sitting rooms, couples swayed to dance music played live, families gathered to listen to radio comedy shows such as  It’s That Man Again , listen to singers like Vera Lynn, and occasionally to be mystified by magic – performed over the radio.  Home radio in World War Two (Source: Creative Commons Licence) A host of magicians achieved considerable success from their appearances on radio during World War Two, but not all actually performed any tricks. Here's a few of them: J. B. Priestley P...