 Major General Sir Kenneth William Dobson Strong KBE , CB ( 9 September 1900 – 11 January 1982 ) was a senior officer of the British Army who served in the Second World War , rising to become Director General of Intelligence . A graduate of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst , Strong was commissioned into the 1st Battalion , Royal Scots Fusiliers in 1920 . After service as an Intelligence Officer with his battalion in Ireland from 1920 to 1922 during the Irish War of Independence , he volunteered for service as an interpreter and was posted to Germany with the British Army of the Rhine . In 1935 he returned to Germany as a member of the International Force supervising the Saarland plebiscite . Afterwards , he joined the German Intelligence Section at the War Office . In 1937 he became Assistant Military attaché in Berlin . 
