The following is based on Wikipedia:
Ewen Edward Samuel Montagu was born in 1901, the second son of Louis Samuel Montagu, 2nd Baron Swaythling and Gladys, Baroness Swaythling (née Goldsmid). Ewen Montagu married Iris, the daughter of the painter Solomon J. Solomon, in 1923. He was the brother of Stuart Albert Samuel, 3rd Baron Swaythling and Ivor Montagu.
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 before he was called to the bar in 1924. One of his more celebrated cases as a junior barrister was the defence of Alma Rattenbury in 1935 against a charge of murdering her elderly husband at the Villa Madeira in Bournemouth.
The Sketch – Wednesday 30 August 1922
Montagu was a keen yachtsman, and enlisted in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve in 1938. Because of his legal background he was reassigned to specialized study. From there he was assigned to the Royal Navy’s East Yorkshire headquarters at Hull as an assistant staff officer in intelligence. Montagu served in the Naval Intelligence Division of the British Admiralty, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Commander RNVR. He was the Naval Representative on the XX Committee, which oversaw the running of double agents.
Operation Mincemeat
While Commanding Officer of NID 17M, Montagu and Squadron Leader Charles Cholmondely RAFVR conceived Operation Mincemeat, a major deception operation.[4] Montagu had the idea of having a corpse dressed as a British officer wash ashore in Spain, carrying faked papers revealing plans for invasion of Greece (the real target was Sicily). The location chosen was where pro-German Spanish officials would show the papers to German agents. Montagu also manufactured an entire false identity for the corpse to have in his pockets: military ID, theatre ticket stubs, love letters and a photo of his fiancée, bills from a tailor and jeweller.
The Germans were fooled completely. German documents found after the war showed that the false information went all the way to Hitler’s headquarters, and led to German forces being diverted to Greece. The invasion of Sicily was a success. Historian Hugh Trevor-Roper called it the best deception in the history of military deception. For his role in Operation Mincemeat, Montagu was appointed to the Military Division of the Order of the British Empire. In November 2021 the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation, working with the Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women and the London Borough of Hackney placed a memorial at the Hackney Mortuary.
Later career
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, which was made into a movie three years later. Montagu himself appeared in the film adaptation of The Man Who Never Was, playing an Air-Vice Marshal who had in real life disparaged his own character (played by Clifton Webb) in a briefing. 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.[7]
Before the Courts Act 1971 Montagu was Chairman of the Quarter Sessions for the Middlesex area of Greater London and recorder in the County of Hampshire. He was appointed Deputy Lieutenant of the County of Southampton.
Montagu was president of the United Synagogue, 1954–62, and President of the Anglo-Jewish Association from December 1949.[9]
Family
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, and a daughter, Jennifer, who became an art historian. Montagu’s youngest brother Ivor Montagu was a film maker and Communist.
Montagu was a first cousin, once removed, of comedian Christopher Guest, through Montagu’s maternal grandparents.
Sunday Post – Sunday 18 June 1922
CHATTY GOSSIP OF THE DAY
Lord Swaythling’s second son, the Hon. Ewen Montagu, has just become engaged to Miss Rachael Solomon. The bride-to-be is very good-looking, and is the daughter of the portrait painter, Solomon J. Solomon, who was so much to the fore in camouflage work during the war. Mr Montagu went to Harvard University before he went to Cambridge. The Swaythlings hold to the international education theory, and the idea had the result of establishing many American friendships for their son.
