Background
Ewen Montagu was the second son of Louis Samuel Montagu, born on March 19, 1901.
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Ewen Montagu was the second son of Louis Samuel Montagu, born on March 19, 1901.
He studied economics and law in Cambridge.
In 1924 he was called to the bar and was made a king's counsel in 1939.
His interest in boats led him to join the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve, and in 1939 he served as naval intelligence officer at Hull. In 1941 he was posted to the naval intelligence division at the Admiralty where he ran the highly secret branch that handled counter espionage.
He also wrote Beyond Top Secret U (1977), an account of what had been left out of his best-seller.
After the war, Montagu returned to law, becoming judge advocate of the fleet in 1945, a post he held till 1973. He was also appointed to a leading London judicial post as chairman of the Middlesex Quarter Sessions and acquired a formidable reputation for outspokenness on the bench.
The best-known of his several military successes was Operation Mincemeat which in 1943 involved the Boating a shore in Spain of what appeared to be the bodv of a Royal Marine officer carrying documents indicating an imminent Allied attack on Sardinia (rather than Sicily, which was the actual target). This successful ploy was recorded in his book The Man Who Never Was (1953), which sold over two million copies and inspired the film of the same name (1955).
Montagu was a devout Jew and was president of the United Synagogue from 1945 to 1962.
