Christopher Hutton
Christopher William Clayton Hutton (1893–1965) a soldier, airman, journalist and inventor, was recruited as an intelligence officer to work for MI9, a branch of the British Military Intelligence, during the Second World War. Known as 'Clutty' to his friends, he was engaged towards the end of 1939 by the War Office to work under Major (later Brigadier) Norman Crockatt, in order to set up and run operations to create and distribute escape and evasion aids for Allied servicemen. Hutton's small team identified suitable manufacturers, ensured supplies and devised methods by which the concealed aids could be sent to prisoner of war camps.
Christopher Hutton
Early in WWII he found his niche, thanks to showing his interviewer proof of his encounter with Houdini – aged nineteen Clayton Hutton had bet Houdini that the latter could not get out of a wooden crate built by one of his uncle's workmen. Unknown to the lads at the factory until later, Houdini bribed the workman to make the crate largely from false nails, and so won the bet. After a brief interview at the War Office he was appointed together with four others, to help Norman Crockatt set up a new section in the secret service department MI9. Their tasks included training fighting men in how to evade capture or escape if they found themselves in enemy-held territory and, a little later in the war, supporting escape and evasion lines, and interrogating returned prisoners. Hutton's function was to provide evasion and escape devices. He was recommissioned in May 1940 as a captain on the general list of the army; was promoted major in 1943; and was then allowed to retire into plain clothes, but still bound under the Official Secrets Act.