Ewen Montagu

Captain Ewen Edward Samuel Montagu, CBE, QC, DL, RNR (19 March 1901 – 19 July 1985) was a British judge, writer and Naval intelligence officer, from a prominent British Jewish family. He is well known for his leading role in Operation Mincemeat, a critical military deception operation which misdirected German forces' attention away from the Allied Invasion of Sicily in Operation Husky.

Life and career

Montagu was born in 1901, the second son of Louis Montagu, 2nd Baron Swaythling. He was educated at Westminster School before becoming a machine gun instructor during World War I 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.

World War II