David Strangeways David Inderwick Strangeways DSO , OBE ( 26 February 19121 August 1998 ) was a Colonel in the British Army who helped organize several military deceptions during World War II . After leaving the Army in 1957 , he took holy orders . Early life . Strangeways was born in Cambridge , the third son of Strangeways , founder of the Strangeways Research Laboratory . He attended Cambridgeshire High School for Boys and later Trinity Hall , Cambridge , reading History . Military career . Strangeways was commissioned into the Duke of Wellington ' s Regiment in 1933 and served in the 1st Battalion based at Aldershot then Malta . After the outbreak of World War II , he was sent to France where he participated in a rearguard action while the British forces tried to reach Dunkirk . Strangeways successfully managed to evacuate part of his battalion on a Thames barge . Deception . In 1942 , Strangeways ' career in military deception began in earnest . Sent from the War Office in London to Cairo , he reported to General Sir Harold Alexander with deception plans designed to fool the Axis powers as to the time and place of the Allied invasion of North Africa . The deception relied upon convincing the Axis powers that the massed landing craft were destined not for North Africa but to relieve beleaguered Malta . To bring about the deception , novelist and fellow deception officer Dennis Wheatley , based at the London Controlling Section , supplied Strangeways with a letter to an acquaintance in Cairo and a copy of his latest novel . The book , with the letter left inside , was then left at a Cairo hotel for enemy agents to find . Strangeways then joined Brigadier Dudley Clarke ' s A - Force . His job was to use deception to gain a strategic and tactical advantage over the enemy in the Near and Middle East . He achieved this by using radio net s to broadcast false information . Decoy tanks and other vehicles were used in order to divert Axis forces away from the areas of Allied attack . Using a combination of bluff , boldness and speed , Strangeways was able to seize the German headquarters at Tunis before the Germans could destroy their secret documents . In 1943 , General Bernard Montgomery took command of 21st Army Group and requested that Strangeways take charge of R - Force . This was principally a deception force and consisted of armoured vehicles , field engineers and a wireless unit . Strangeways developed Operation " Quicksilver " , a significant part of Operation " Fortitude South " , with the aim of fooling the Germans that the Allied invasion of Europe would take place at the Pas - de - Calais . Post - war . After the Allies ' victory over Nazi Germany , Strangeways was given the role of political adviser to the Allied Commissioners for Westphalia and the Rhine . This role was a combination of intelligence work , administration of German detainees and border control . Later , following two staff appointments in England , Strangeways briefly joined the Green Howards . In 1949 , a posting to the British Military Mission in Greece saw him advising the Greek government . In 1952 , Strangeways took command of the 1st Battalion the East Yorkshire Regiment . The regiment was on a three - year tour of Malaya and engaged in fighting the Communist insurgency during the Malayan Emergency . Theological career . Strangeways left the Army in 1957 to attend Wells Theological College and gain Anglican holy orders . In 1958 , his first appointment was as curate of Lee - on - the - Solent . From 1961 to 1965 , he was vicar at Symondsbury , Dorset , followed by eight years at Bradford on Avon . He served as Chaplain to the British Embassy at Stockholm and , in 1977 , became Chancellor and Senior Canon of St Paul ' s Pro - Cathedral , Malta . Strangeways retired in 1981 and returned to England , continuing to serve as a priest in the diocese s of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich and Norwich .