Ewen Montagu | |
---|---|
Personal details | |
Born | Ewen Edward Samuel Montagu 29 March 1901 |
Died | 19 July 1985 | (aged 84)
Nationality | British |
Occupation | Naval intelligence officer |
Known for | Operation Mincemeat |
Ewen Edward Samuel Montagu CBE QC DL (29 March 1901 – 19 July 1985) was a British judge, Naval intelligence officer, and author.
He is best known for his leading role in Operation Mincemeat, a critical military deception operation that misdirected German forces' attention away from the Allied invasion of Sicily ("Operation Husky").
Montagu was president of the United Synagogue from 1954 to 1962, and President of the Anglo-Jewish Association from December 1949 on.[1]
Montagu was born in 1901, the second son of Gladys, Baroness Swaythling (née Goldsmid) and Louis Montagu, 2nd Baron Swaythling. His family was Jewish.[2] He was educated at Westminster School before becoming a machine gun instructor during the First World War at a United States Naval Air Station. After the war he studied at Trinity College, Cambridge and at Harvard University.[3] He was admitted to the Middle Temple on 22 November 1920 and was called to the Bar on 14 May 1924.[4] One of his more celebrated cases as a junior barrister was the defence of Alma Rattenbury in 1935 against a charge of murdering her 30-years-older husband, the architect Francis Rattenbury, who was savagely beaten with a mallet at the Villa Madeira in Bournemouth.[citation needed] He took silk in 1939.[3]
From 1945 to 1973 Montagu held the position of Judge Advocate of the Fleet. He wrote The Man Who Never Was (1953), an account of Operation Mincemeat that was adapted as a theatrical film three years later. Montagu also wrote Beyond Top Secret Ultra, which focused more on the information technology and espionage tactics used in World War II. He was a governor of a public health project, the Peckham Experiment, in 1949.[11]
Before the Courts Act 1971 Montagu was Chairman of the Quarter Sessions for the Middlesex area of Greater London[12] and recorder in the County of Hampshire. He was appointed Deputy Lieutenant of the County of Southampton.
Montagu was president of the United Synagogue from 1954 to 1962, and President of the Anglo-Jewish Association from December 1949 on.[1]
Montagu's youngest brother, Ivor Montagu, was a film maker and Communist. Ewen Montagu married Iris, the daughter of the painter Solomon J. Solomon, in 1923. They had a son, Jeremy, who became an authority on musical instruments,[13] and a daughter, Jennifer, who became an art historian.
Montagu was a first cousin once removed of comedian Christopher Guest, through Montagu's maternal grandparents.[citation needed]
Montagu has been portrayed on screen twice. In the 1956 film The Man Who Never Was, he was portrayed by Clifton Webb. In the 2021 film Operation Mincemeat, he was played by Colin Firth. Montagu himself appeared in The Man Who Never Was, playing an Air-Vice Marshal questioning the Ewen Montagu character in a briefing.[citation needed]
He has also been portrayed by Natasha Hodgson, Holly Sumpton,[14] and Geri Allen[15] in Operation Mincemeat, a musical first written and performed in 2019 and premiered in the West End in 2023.[16]
Montagu also appears as a character in the Terence Rattigan play Cause Célèbre.