What a great headline for a change. "It was supposed to be the perfect disguise - an English spy with a proficient command of French posing as an art student to transmit information from inside Nazi-occupied France. But the sketching skills of Brian Stonehouse later proved invaluable both in his work for the British military in identifying victims of fellow spies who died in concentration camps, and later in forging a successful career in fashion. The soldier turned spy was eventually spotted by Vogue, who employed him as an illustrator and he became among one of the best known in the profession. An exhibition of Stonehouse's works is currently being displayed in London, charting his extraordinary career that started when he joined the Royal Artillery and saw him awarded an MBE after his work as a secret agent. Stonehouse was an art student in the 1930s when he joined the Royal Artillery in 1939 and was posted on Guard Duty to the Orkney Islands. However his skills, particularly as a soldier fluent in French, were being wasted and he was soon recruited to work in Special Operations Executive (SOE) - a group of secret agents who were deployed across Nazi Europe to give information. His disguise was one of a French arts student called Michel Chapuis and he was sent to France with a radio hidden in his artist's box to transmit intelligence back to Britain. However after just three-and-a-half months he was captured and sent to a series of prisons and concentration camps over two years where he was tortured, put in solitary confinement and forced to carry out slave labour. During this time he was sent to five concentration and labour camps; Neue Bremm (Saarbrüchen), Mauthausen, Wiener Neudorf, Natzweiler-Struthof and Dachau until April 1945." http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2879493/Undercover-WWII-radio-operator-used-skills-fashion-illustrator-identify-victims-Nazis-war-went-work-Vogue.html#ixzz3MJKzanpf
