In 1945, with the fighting in Europe over, a curious story appeared in the pages of British newspapers. It concerned the war record of James Hutchison, an army colonel standing for Parliament in that July’s general election. A year earlier, so Hutchison had revealed to the press, he had parachuted into Nazi-occupied France to work with the French Resistance. What had really caught journalists’ attention, however, was his claim to have disguised his wartime identity by undergoing surgery to his face.