Lieutenant Colonel Dudley Clarke, a ‘key figure in British intelligence’ in the Middle East in the Second World War, set alarm bells ringing in Whitehall when he was arrested dressed as a woman.

Dudley Clarke - who gave the SAS its name - created a fake parachute regiment to terrify Italian troops ... which was formed in North Africa in 1941 by Lieutenant-Colonel David Stirling. ...

What the authorities did not know was that the cross-dresser was Lt. Col. Dudley W. Clarke of the Royal Artillery. Clarke was not only a British officer, he was the personal intelligence officer ...