Lieutenant Colonel David Strangeways served in the North African Campaign with Brigadier Dudley Clarke's A Force, a special unit that used radio nets to give out false information, and decoy tanks and other vehicles to divert Axis forces away from the areas of Allied attack.

Strangeways implemented a deception plan designed to fool the Axis powers as to the time and place of the Allied invasion of North Africa.

Later in the campaign, using a combination of bluff, boldness and speed Strangeways was able to seize the German headquarters at Tunis before the enemy could destroy their secret documents.

[5] After the Allied landings in Normandy in June 1944, R Force moved to the continent where it operated under the 21st Army Group.

[4] R Force's exploits were dramatised in the 2004 TV drama Fooling Hitler starring Jason Durr.