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.

Life and career
Montagu was born in 1901, the second son of the prominent peer 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. He married Iris, the daughter of Solomon J. Solomon, in 1923.

Montagu enlisted in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve as early as 1938 so that he could help his country. Because of his legal background he was reassigned to specialized study. From there he was assigned to the Royal Navy's Humberside 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 Twenty Committee, which oversaw the running of double agents. While Commanding Officer of NID 17M, Squadron Leader Charles Cholmondely, RAFVR and he conceived Operation Mincemeat, a major deception plan against the Germans during the war. For his role in Mincemeat, he was appointed to the Military Division of the Order of the British Empire.

From 1945 to 1973 he held the position of Judge Advocate of the Fleet. He wrote The Man Who Never Was (1953), a fair, responsible 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 disparaged his own character (played by Clifton Webb) in a briefing. Montagu also wrote Beyond Top Secret Ultra. This book focuses more on the information technology and espionage tactics that were used during World War II.

He was president of the United Synagogue, 1954–62, and vice-president of the Anglo-Jewish Association.

Prior to the Court Act of 1971 he was Recorder (judge) in the Counties of Hampshire and Middlesex. He was also appointed Deputy Lieutenant of the County of Southampton.

His youngest brother Ivor Montagu was a film maker and Communist who was an apparent a World War II spy for the Soviet GRU.

Ewen Montagu once owned 'Gleam', a Robert Clarke designed sloop built in 1938.