Unlike Santos’s, Stringfellow’s fabrications were mostly focused on one thing: his war service. And there was a kernel of truth inside his fake story. He really did enlist in the Army in 1942, and he really was grievously injured by a land mine, for which he was awarded a Purple Heart. He returned to Utah with his bride after the war, eventually gaining the ability to walk short distances with the aid of a cane. Stringfellow began telling his fake wartime story in church soon afterward, long preceding his political career.
The audience for Stringfellow’s story grew and grew; soon he was going on national speaking tours. He was a terrific public speaker, and the details he shared of his spy mission were harrowing. He was forced to run over a pile of people burning to death, he said, and he watched his Nazi captors torture his friends as they tried to get him to talk. He would lift his hands to show scars at the base of his fingernails, saying they came from bamboo strips the Nazis shoved under his nails and then lit on fire.
Encouraged by local GOP party leaders to run for Congress, he gave his campaign stops a revival-like quality as he led supporters on an emotional journey through his war story. He won the open seat in a landslide.
Even after he entered Congress, his star continued to rise, culminating in a 1954 appearance on the hit television show “This Is Your Life.” Each episode featured a notable guest who is surprised with people from his or her past who recount the guest’s climb to success. Stringfellow’s commanding officer told the audience of the congressman’s heroics against the Nazis — heroics that Stringfellow said later he knew were lies.
Some of the veterans who actually had captured Hahn saw the show, according to the Salt Lake City Tribune, and did not appreciate Stringfellow’s stealing their valor. Soon, journalists and Utah Democratic leaders started digging and calling Stringfellow’s record into question.