[2] He then entered the colonial administrative service following two tours of Uganda with the 4th King's African Rifles, returning there in 1929 as an assistant district commissioner.

At first Twining's operation focused on traffic in European languages, but once Britain had declared war on Japan following the attacks on Pearl Harbor and Malaya in December 1941, he and his team began working on Japanese signals.

Twining's operation was extraordinarily successful but it remained secret until long after the end of the war and he omitted any mention of it from his draft autobiography.

[8] This was prompted largely because, as a governor of a colony under the auspices of United Nations supervision, he was more than happy to receive Inspectors to the east African country on biennial missions.

In 1952 he had already paved the way for independence in 1961 by trialling an all-communities constitutional arrangement that guaranteed democratic representation for minority populations in the state that would become Tanzania.

However, back in London he encouraged development corporations to work closely with governments and business to secure more investment in African territories.

He warned that the Westminster model should not be imposed upon Africa, rather that the local leaders should be allowed to draft their own party political arrangements to articulate independence movements.