 Strong was commissioned into the 1st Battalion Royal Scots Fusiliers in 1920 . He served as an Intelligence Officer with his battalion in Ireland from 1920 to 1922 during the Irish War of Independence . In 1922 he volunteered for service with the British Army of the Rhine . He was trained as an interpreter and posted to Germany from 1926 until the Occupation of the Rhineland ended in 1929 . He then served as a Defence Security Officer in Malta and Gibraltar . 
